"Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him." Isaiah 30:18 NAS

In the last devotional we were talking about how God longs to be gracious to us and how He waits on high to have compassion on us. This verse gives us an exact picture and true perception of God. It also gives us the heart we want to have that responds to His grace and compassion. Now when I was growing up it seems to me that we were at church all the time and for that I am truly grateful. I had shared with my Dad about a year ago how grateful I was for his commitment to get us to church.

Even some teach it has something to do with your standing in Him and in fact you are not truly one of His unless you are in this certain brand name church. Of course let’s not forget that you need a certificate so to speak that says you have met the basic boot camp requirements to partake of the body and blood of Jesus. This then would pose the question: How can God be gracious with you and shower you with His compassion if this is the case? That must be why He waits on high so He can overlook the church pews and chairs to see who is in them or not.

What if the car breaks down and you can not make it that day? Please don’t misunderstand me here. Clearly we do need to be in fellowship and are even commanded in scripture to be in fellowship. It just saddens my heart to hear someone believe they must do the traditions of men for the gracious compassion of the Lord our God, Jesus Christ. My wife and I have tried to instill a different attitude in our children. What my children have come to know is that we get to go. They long to go to church and worship Jesus.

We serve a God who longs and awaits for all of us to worship Him. He longs to be gracious to us. He longs to be patient with us. In some ways we may even think He is too patient with the world. He is not sitting up in heaven with a telescope looking down waiting for us to mess up again. Often this idea we get about God may come from having parents who acted like this with us. When we are children the idea we get about how God loves us is initially shown through our parents until we come to understand what the Bible says about God’s love.

If you grew up in a home that professed to be Christian and yet abused you, then you may have grown up to think God is a mean abusive God who is always angry with you. God the LORD, the all-powerful Yah Yahweh is certainly a God of judgment and rightfully so. Equally though He is a God of love. He is a God of patients. He is equally all of His attributes the same. He is complete justice and yet complete mercy.

In regards to His attributes A. W. Tozer says, "No attribute of God is greater than any other one. We think so. But since all of the attributes of God are simply God, then it's impossible that anything in God can be greater than anything else in God (2)." He loves like nothing else in this world. He always waits and longs for us to come before Him. We may not even always desire Him. How great it is to know that He always waits and longs to be gracious to us. He never, no never stops desiring us. Our friends may stop longing for us.

Our family may stop longing for us, but Jesus always awaits us and He always longs for us. A. W. Tozer says, "We have God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost always acting like God. Your wife may be grouchy, your best friend may be cold, foreign wars may be going on, but God is always the same. Always God acts according to His attributes of love, justice and mercy (3)." He desires for us to come to repentance. He desires for us to turn to Him that He may turn and be gracious to us.

In Isaiah 30:15 it says, "For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, In repentance and rest you shall be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength..." God has always called for repentance in us. Repentance is to change allegiance and to think differently. It means to make a U-turn and go the opposite direction. Once we come to Jesus with this kind of heart and repentance, He begins the life long journey to pour over us His gracious compassion.

How wonderful it to know He always delights in us. Then we have desire realized and how sweet it is to our souls. Direct your hearts desire to Jesus. He awaits it and longs for us to lift our eyes, hearts, hands and souls toward heaven so that He can lavish Himself upon us. Be blessed today in His grace.