Return!

Return!

Joel 2:12-13 AMPC

[12] Therefore also now, says the Lord, turn and keep on coming to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning [until every hindrance is removed and the broken fellowship is restored]. [13] Rend your hearts and not your garments and return to the Lord, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness; and He revokes His sentence of evil [when His conditions are met].

Two definitions of 'return' may be relevant to our reflection today, and these are: 'an act of coming or going back to a place or activity' and 'to come or go back to a place or person.' God is the One speaking here, and asking us to return to Him. One thing that would make God speak this way would be that there is a change in the lives of people who had been with Him before. He was speaking to his people in Israel, who had abandoned the terms of the covenant and were doing their own thing. Now, judgment was coming, in line with the warnings God had consistently laid out for his children. However, even in the midst of the certainty of judgment, the love of God is still evident. Let it be known again, that the wages of sin is death, and no amount of education, enlightenment, experience, exposure or earnings can change those wages into anything else. The heart has to be right for the action itself to be right. As I read the verses above, it is very clear to me that God is not moved by the things that naturally excite man. 

He is looking for the right heart, which will then make the life and all it offers acceptable to God. Do not get the order wrong; otherwise, one may end up with an eternity of regret because you may not know you are wrong until it is too late. God calls all who will come to Him to make the approach the right way, so that they can be accepted. No amount of arguments or smooth talking will make God change or lower His standards. The invitation to come is also made to everyone; it does not matter how dirty or messed up the past is; there is no stain so deep or sin so great that the blood of Jesus cannot deal with. There is no past so dire that the new life of God cannot deal with, but it matters in whose hands you place your life. The God who calls me is described above as being gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness. These are not attributes you can ascribe to any human being, because God cannot be equated with anyone else. His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting, and His love knows no bounds or limits. 

God did not just get this way recently, but this has been His nature even before the world, as we know it now, was formed. In striking the right balance too, we must also acknowledge Him as a God of judgment, who punishes sin. It is this mix of judgment and mercy that makes God to be reverenced and feared at the same time. He will punish unconfessed sin, no matter in whom it is found, but He will also show mercy to unborn generations of people who submit to and love Him with all their hearts. Even when He says He will punish, if there is genuine repentance, He will show mercy. Who would have thought that a man like king Ahab will ever enjoy the mercy of God, but he did. No one is ever so far gone that s/he is beyond the grace of God. He will not let go unless I reject Him to the end of my earthly life. Then, it is too late.  Before then, please return to God. He waits for all of us to come to Him and will not turn anyone away. What are you waiting for? God's time of favour is here.