“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17
The minor prophets of the Old Testament are often seen as calling Israel to judgment and pronouncing wrath upon His rebellious people. But in this often over-looked little verse God bares his heart and proclaims the depths of his love for his people.
If we were alive over 2025 years ago and prayed that God would have mercy upon us and take on human flesh, live a perfect and obedient life, then allow sinful man to nail him to a cross, and in that act absorb the wrath of God for our sins, we would be looked upon as deliriously out of touch with reality. Then to suggest that He would rise from the dead, show himself alive to his friends and challenge them to take his message to all the world; they would surely be laughed at.
The whole picture is beyond our mortal mind to comprehend. But when Paul and the early Apostles walked into the Greek and Roman world outside of Palestine that is what they had to face. How did they do it?
Certainly they were driven by the fact that their teacher had conquered death and the promised power of the Holy Spirit led them on.
In 2 Corinthians 5:14 we are given a hint. Paul said “The love of God compels us (constrains us, drives us on). One commentator suggests that it was as if Paul was walking between two walls and from each wall the voice, “I love you,” resounded.
In our humanness we respond to love. We don’t want to hurt those who have poured out their love on us. In 1st John 3:1, the Apostle reminds us “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.”
Earlier in his Gospel, John says, “He came unto his own but they received him not. But to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” We are adopted into his family with all the rights and privileges of sonship. As I pray with truck drivers I always try to pray that they will grasp the depth of God’s love for them.
With the full knowledge of our faults and shortcomings it is hard to grasp God takes delight in us, he will quiet us with his love or rejoices over us with singing. Oh yes, we grieve the heart of God and of the Holy Spirit when we live self-destructive lifestyles. But as in the story of the Prodigal Son, he welcomes us home with arms open wide.
Franklin Graham, a rebel in his early years, dreaded facing his father when he was expelled from Letourneau Tech. But Billy was waiting with open arms when he arrived back home. May God’s love compel us and may we hear his voice above the voices of this world driving us on to advance the Kingdom.
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