"So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him."[Luke 15:20]
I heard about a little girl who brought out a piece of paper and some crayons and was getting ready to draw something.
Her mom said, "Honey, what are you going to draw?"
"I am going to draw a picture of God."
"Sweetheart, no one knows what God looks like."
The little girl replied, "They will when I'm done."
The only place we can get a proper portrait of God is in the pages of Scripture. Jesus effectively gave us a snapshot of God, telling us what God is like in the story of the prodigal son. In this story, God is like a father who loves his children. When we are sinning against Him or running from Him, He misses us and longs for our return. It is clearly a picture of a loving father.
But sometimes we may think of God in the same way we think of our earthly fathers. That can be problematic, because if you have a father who is aloof and distant, or worse, harsh and even abusive, you might apply that to God. Then again, if you have a father who is kind, approachable, and fun loving, you might transfer that to God also.
Here is the problem. God isn't like your earthly father. God is God. He stands apart from everyone else. Regardless of how good or poor of a job your father on Earth may have done, you need to know that your heavenly Father is different.
He is a God of love. He is a God of mercy. He is a God of grace. But He is also a God of justice. He is a God of holiness. He is a God of righteousness. And the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament.
Share this today:
God isn't like your earthly father. God is God. He stands apart from everyone else. Regardless of how good or poor of a job your father on Earth may have done, you need to know that your heavenly Father is different.
Today's Bible Reading
Isaiah 63:1 Who is this, coming from Edom,
from Botzrah with clothing stained crimson,
so magnificently dressed,
so stately in his great strength?
“It is I, who speak victoriously,
I, well able to save.”
2 Why is your apparel red,
your clothes like someone treading a winepress?
3 “I have trodden the winepress alone;
from the peoples, not one was with me.
So I trod them in my anger,
trampled them in my fury;
so their lifeblood spurted out on my clothing,
and I have stained all my garments;
4 for the day of vengeance that was in my heart
and my year of redemption have come.
5 I looked, but there was no one to help,
and I was appalled that no one upheld me.
Therefore my own arm brought me salvation,
and my own fury upheld me.
6 In my anger I trod down the peoples,
made them drunk with my fury,
then poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”
7 I will recall the grace of Adonai
and the praises of Adonai,
because of all that Adonai has granted us
and his great goodness toward the house of Isra’el,
which he bestowed on them in keeping with his mercy,
in keeping with the greatness of his grace.
8 For he said, “They are indeed my people,
children who are not disloyal.”
So he became their Savior.
9 In all their troubles he was troubled;
then the Angel of His Presence saved them;
in his love and pity he redeemed them.
He had lifted them up and carried them
throughout the days of old.
10 However, they rebelled,
they grieved his Holy Spirit;
so he became their enemy
and himself fought against them.
11 But then his people remembered
the days of old, the days of Moshe:
“Where is he who brought them up from the sea
with the shepherds of his flock?
Where is he who put his Holy Spirit
right there among them,
12 who caused his glorious arm to go
at Moshe’s right hand?
He divided the water ahead of them,
to make himself an eternal name;
13 he led them through the deep
like a sure-footed horse through the desert;
14 like cattle going down into a valley
the Spirit of Adonai had them rest.
This is how you led your people,
to make yourself a glorious name.”
15 Look down from heaven; and see
from your holy, glorious dwelling.
Where are your zeal and your mighty deeds,
your inner concern and compassion?
Don’t hold back, 16 for you are our father.
Even if Avraham were not to know us,
and Isra’el were not to acknowledge us,
you, Adonai, are our father,
Our Redeemer of Old is your name.
17 Adonai, why do you let us wander from your ways
and harden our hearts, so that we do not fear you?
Return, for the sake of your servants,
the tribes who are your possession.
18 Your holy people held your sanctuary such a short time,
before our adversaries trampled it down.
19 For so long we have been like those you never ruled,
like those who were not called by your name!
(64:1) We wish you would tear open heaven and come down,
so the mountains would shake at your presence!
64:1 (2) It would be like fire kindling the brush,
and the fire then makes the water boil.
Then your enemies would know your name,
the nations would tremble before you!
2 (3) When you did tremendous things
that we were not expecting,
we wished that you would come down,
so that the mountains would shake at your presence!
3 (4) No one has ever heard,
no ear perceived, no eye seen,
any God but you.
You work for him who waits for you.
4 (5) You favored those who were glad to do justice,
those who remembered you in your ways.
When you were angry, we kept sinning;
but if we keep your ancient ways, we will be saved.
5 (6) All of us are like someone unclean,
all our righteous deeds like menstrual rags;
we wither, all of us, like leaves;
and our misdeeds blow us away like the wind.
6 (7) No one calls on your name
or bestirs himself to take hold of you,
for you have hidden your face from us
and caused our misdeeds to destroy us.
7 (8) But now, Adonai, you are our father;
we are the clay, you are our potter;
and we are all the work of your hands.
8 (9) Do not be so very angry, Adonai!
Don’t remember crime forever.
Look, please, we are all your people.
9 (10) Your holy cities have become a desert,
Tziyon a desert, Yerushalayim a ruin.
10 (11) Our holy, beautiful house,
where our ancestors used to praise you,
has been burned to the ground;
all we cherished has been ruined.
11 (12) Adonai, after all this,
will you still hold back?
Will you still stay silent
and punish us past endurance?
Psalm 107:1 Give thanks to Adonai; for he is good,
for his grace continues forever.
2 Let those redeemed by Adonai say it,
those he redeemed from the power of the foe.
3 He gathered them from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the sea.
4 They wandered in the desert, on paths through the wastes,
without finding any inhabited city.
5 They were hungry and thirsty,
their life was ebbing away.
6 In their trouble they cried to Adonai,
and he rescued them from their distress.
7 He led them by a direct path
to a city where they could live.
8 Let them give thanks to Adonai for his grace,
for his wonders bestowed on humanity!
9 For he has satisfied the hungry,
filled the starving with good.
10 Some lived in darkness, in death-dark gloom,
bound in misery and iron chains,
11 because they defied God’s word,
scorned the counsel of the Most High.
12 So he humbled their hearts by hard labor;
when they stumbled, no one came to their aid.
13 In their trouble they cried to Adonai,
and he rescued them from their distress.
14 He led them from darkness, from death-dark gloom,
shattering their chains.
15 Let them give thanks to Adonai for his grace,
for his wonders bestowed on humanity!
16 For he shattered bronze doors
and cut through iron bars.
17 There were foolish people who suffered affliction
because of their crimes and sins;
18 they couldn’t stand to eat anything;
they were near the gates of death.
19 In their trouble they cried to Adonai,
and he rescued them from their distress;
20 he sent his word and healed them,
he delivered them from destruction.
21 Let them give thanks to Adonai for his grace,
for his wonders bestowed on humanity!
22 Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving
and proclaim his great deeds with songs of joy.
23 Those who go down to the sea in ships,
plying their trade on the great ocean,
24 saw the works of Adonai,
his wonders in the deep.
25 For at his word the storm-wind arose,
lifting up towering waves.
26 The sailors were raised up to the sky,
then plunged into the depths.
At the danger, their courage failed them,
27 they reeled and staggered like drunk men,
and all their skill was swallowed up.
28 In their trouble they cried to Adonai,
and he rescued them from their distress.
29 He silenced the storm and stilled its waves,
30 and they rejoiced as the sea grew calm.
Then he brought them safely
to their desired port.
31 Let them give thanks to Adonai for his grace,
for his wonders bestowed on humanity!
32 Let them extol him in the assembly of the people
and praise him in the leaders’ council.
33 He turns rivers into desert,
flowing springs into thirsty ground,
34 productive land into salt flats,
because the people living there are so wicked.
35 But he also turns desert into pools of water,
dry land into flowing springs;
36 there he gives the hungry a home,
and they build a city to live in;
37 there they sow fields and plant vineyards,
which yield an abundant harvest.
38 He blesses them, their numbers grow,
and he doesn’t let their livestock decrease.
39 When their numbers fall, and they grow weak,
because of oppression, disaster and sorrow,
40 he pours contempt on princes
and leaves them to wander in trackless wastes.
41 But the needy he raises up from their distress
and increases their families like sheep.
42 When the upright see this, they rejoice;
while the wicked are reduced to silence.
43 Let whoever is wise observe these things
and consider Adonai’s loving deeds.
John 2:1 On Tuesday[John 2:1 Greek: the third day, equivalent to Hebrew yom shlishi] there was a wedding at Kanah in the Galil; and the mother of Yeshua was there. 2 Yeshua too was invited to the wedding, along with his talmidim. 3 The wine ran out, and Yeshua’s mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” 4 Yeshua replied, “Mother, why should that concern me? — or you? My time hasn’t come yet.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now six stone water-jars were standing there for the Jewish ceremonial washings, each with a capacity of twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Yeshua told them, “Fill the jars with water,” and they filled them to the brim. 8 He said, “Now draw some out, and take it to the man in charge of the banquet”; and they took it. 9 The man in charge tasted the water; it had now turned into wine! He did not know where it had come from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew. So he called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone else serves the good wine first and the poorer wine after people have drunk freely. But you have kept the good wine until now!” 11 This, the first of Yeshua’s miraculous signs, he did at Kanah in the Galil; he manifested his glory, and his talmidim came to trust in him. 12 Afterwards, he, his mother and brothers, and his talmidim went down to K’far-Nachum and stayed there a few days.
13 It was almost time for the festival of Pesach in Y’hudah, so Yeshua went up to Yerushalayim. 14 In the Temple grounds he found those who were selling cattle, sheep and pigeons, and others who were sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 He made a whip from cords and drove them all out of the Temple grounds, the sheep and cattle as well. He knocked over the money-changers’ tables, scattering their coins; 16 and to the pigeon-sellers he said, “Get these things out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market?” 17 (His talmidim later recalled that the Tanakh says, “Zeal for your house will devour me.” )[John 2:17 Psalm 69:10(9)] 18 So the Judeans confronted him by asking him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove you have the right to do all this?” 19 Yeshua answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” 20 The Judeans said, “It took 46 years to build this Temple, and you’re going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the “temple” he had spoken of was his body. 22 Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his talmidim remembered that he had said this, and they trusted in the Tanakh and in what Yeshua had said.
23 Now while Yeshua was in Yerushalayim at the Pesach festival, there were many people who “believed in his name” when they saw the miracles he performed. 24 But he did not commit himself to them, for he knew what people are like — 25 that is, he didn’t need anyone to inform him about a person, because he knew what was in the person’s heart.
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Harvest Ministries with Greg LaurieP.O. Box 4000
Riverside, California 92514-4000 United States
Phone: 1-800-821-3300
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