I will make no progress in my discipleship if I limit God to one side. He has two sides. One shows His infinite kindness and patience, the other His firmness and resolution, which the Puritans called “the stormy north side of Jesus Christ.” Most of the teaching about God I have heard refers to His grace, love, and kindness. I am seriously deficient in learning that He has a north side as well.
Jeremiah saw these two sides of God. In chapter 18 he saw God mend the broken clay jar and put it back to usefulness. In chapter 19 he saw God break another jar to pieces (19:10) as an illustration of what He would do to His people in the future (vv. 10—15). I must learn this somber message.
Too many people feel that God’s patience is limitless, His love is inured to pain, His discipline is soft and delayed, and, anyway, Calvary “covers it all.” Such a distorted view of God leads us into all kinds of looseness, laxness, and sloppiness in discipleship. But God is no such pushover. If I do not yield to His love, I must yield before His pressure.
Am I so hard of heart that it takes a blow to wake me up? Must I be slave-driven in order to appreciate the loveliness of His person? Or am I so tuned in to Him that the slightest movement of His finger will make me yield? Am I clay in His hands, soft and responsive, or a mass of hard, brittle parts?
God reserves His stormy north side for the callously indifferent, but He is never unfeeling toward those who cry for mercy and help. What kind of a God is He? “He delighteth in mercy.” What will He do for us who come suppliant and contrite? “He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us” (Micah 7:18–19, KJV). Such a God is our God forever.
“And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ” (Colossians 1:28).
Daily with the King 