359. Gracious and Merciful
Joel 2:13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
Rending the heart and turning to the Lord is a condition for the Lord to act for us with grace and mercy. God will always act out of his inherent character, which is Love. Love is the essence of who God is.in his nature. His love shows itself in our lives as grace, mercy and kindness. The Lord is like this and He will always do these things this way. That’s a guaranteed promise. The love of God for His created human beings compelled Him to send His only Son into the world to die for us and rise again. In this way God loved the world. And now, because of Christ the Father can and effectively does show grace and mercy and great kindness. He shows mercy not only in the constant forgiveness of all sins, but also He is gracious and kind to hear our prayers and answer them for our blessing.
The Lord God by nature is slow to anger, but He does eventually and inevitably become angry at sin and evil. God’s character of holiness and justice demands righteous anger. If sin should go unchecked and cruelty and injustice be allowed to have its way the human race would destroy itself. So God gets angry at what sin does to His beloved creatures. God does not want to get angry, but after a time He must take righteous action against evil. The Lord was willing to let Sodom and Gomorrah escape judgment. He waited over 100 years to send the Great Flood. And so on to other examples. The Lord is loath to bring judgment, and He dearly wishes He could change His mind. Therefore, in mercy, the Father put Jesus on the cross and judged all our sin there. Now because of Christ receiving the anger of God toward our sin we are free and forgiven, God cannot do evil to us.
“Rend your hearts” means simply sincere repentance with a revulsion of sin and a strong desire to change. Our sin breaks our hearts. Then we turn to the Lord for forgiveness and new life. God’s promise of grace, mercy and kindness moves us to repent and turn and believes, and thereby allow ourselves to be changed.