There is lots of talk about God being by his very nature love, and i have no disagreement with that, but there is another side of the coin, which is sometimes God does something we may not like, and we mistakingly believe he is not acting in love towards us. There has to be another side to the nature of love, there are times tough love for a better word comes into play, if it does not i think love is unbalanced and heres why. If my son is doing something which can harm him, i need to step in and stop what is going on, now he maybe enjoying what he is doing, but if due to the situation its going to harm him, i have to do something, to not do it would be a massive dereliction of my parenting skills and a massive let down of my sons trust in me. You see when we only talk about God being a God of love we miss other aspects of his character, we miss those parenting parts which are there for our benefit, even if we don't like them. Obviously we focus on love as thats what we are as human beings, we crave love, we crave intimacy its in our nature its that simple. But we do have to look at that other side of the coin, for justice to work at times its going to cost something, pride may need to take a back seat, it may require us to be disciplined in some way, and that by its nature is not going to be great while its happening or even when its finished. If we take the view that God is father then discipline and judgement needs to happen at times, we can't escape it, it is i would posit an inevitability that it will happen. Does that mean God no longer loves us, no it means he is doing his job of caring for us. That act took its full conclusion in the death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross, it cost something for justice to be given out, it cost God and it cost Jesus. You see for us to stand clean before him, we had to have a sacrifice, we had to do something and we need to act upon it. Justice has a price, it just depends on what that price is for us as individuals, Yes God is righteous, he is just, he is all forgiving, he loves and he cares, but to have a full restoration back to him, something happened justice was given out and it cost. Yes God is love, but he is also judge, he is also fair, we may not see it at times and we can cart a word of hurt around with us due to how something went on in our lives and we feel that we have not been justly dealt with. God is always going to be fair in his distribution of justice, whether we see it that way depends on the answer or result we get. If we get our own way God has done right, if for some reason God decides we don't get the answer we want, God has failed, God has let us down and he is no longer to be trusted and far too many of us think that way. Its a great cliche but a truism as well " If Jesus is Lord he is Lord of all" that means he is Lord of the good times and more importantly Lord of the bad times, we just need to relearn trust in him, thats not as easy as it sounds but it can be done. Sometimes we over analyse the little things, and miss the big picture, and its the big picture which is important, the big picture is the kingdom and its long term aim. Our corner of the picture as important as it is to us is not the be all and end all, even if we think it is.
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