Warm and Tender

7.7.2012

Hosea 11.8b-9 My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. 9 I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. ESV

This weekend, according to the forecast, our local weather is supposed to go from warm and tender to burning. By Monday, we’re supposed to creep up around 100 degrees F. (I know for those of you in the Midwest you’re saying, “AND…?”) Well, we wimps up here in Eastern Oregon aren’t too used to too hot for too long – and we sure don’t got no humidity to go along with it. But suffer us, our hot is our hot and when it drifts towards the century mark, well, for us lightweights, it’s hot.

Isn’t it amazing what’s in a word, or a suffix, or a prefix? We can go from changing to unchanging. We know the difference between rest and rested. So I’m reading Hosea today and I notice God has compassion that is warm and tender and He has anger that is burning hot. Even on a hot day, warm and tender compassion sounds way better than burning anger. Our God is moved towards us in warm and tender compassion regardless of the outside temperature.

What ancient Israel deserved was cold and hard judgment; but even God has trouble with His love. For those of us who’ve had, or currently have children, we understand that; and we sure know the difference between compassion that is warm and tender as opposed to anger that is burning. And we know the effect of both; even in our own kid’s worst times we always seem to want to revert to warm and tender compassion instead of burning anger.

I was moved to grateful humility when I read this today; I serve a God, and have a heavenly Father who gives me warm and tender compassion not cold hard judgment. He gives me warm and tender even though I deserve burning. Warm and tender is what I need; really, even in my worst moments, it’s what I long for.

That’s what ultimately awaits the complete fulfillment of Hosea’s prophecy to Israel one of these days soon, and you know what, I’m glad for that for their sakes too. All of us deserve the ultimate penalty for our sin and rebellion against God, but He is moved by His love to give us just the opposite: a heart that beats with warm and tender compassion.

And here’s the punch-line: even God recoils (says so right there) from the thought of His burning anger – He knows just how bad it is. Wow, put that in your pipe and smoke it! Tonight, as we lay our heads on our pillows and drift off to sleep let’s do ourselves a favor and remember a God who loves us so much that He is sickened by even the thought of His judgment and what it will do to His creation. He won’t stay His hand to the unrepentant, but in the meantime, He gives the sinner every warm and tender chance to change his mind… some God, huh?