| The Broken Heart of God |
| by David A. DePra |
| There is nothing which breaks the heart more than seeing |
| someone you love suffer. This is especially true if there is nothing |
| you can do to alleviate the suffering. Such situations are enough |
| to break your heart. |
| There are other things which break the heart. Shattered hopes |
| and dreams do it. To have hoped for something, and seen the |
| hope lost, always breaks the heart. To have wanted a certain |
| dream, only to see it needlessly ruined, likewise can be cause |
| for a broken heart. |
| All of us have had our hearts broken at one time or another. |
| But how often have we, as Christians, realized that God had a |
| broken heart? |
| How? Well, consider. God is the most sensitive being in |
| existance. He is more sensitive to sin, and to wrong, than any of |
| us could imagine. He is also love personfied. Thus, when that |
| which God loves suffers needlessly, or destroys itself, God |
| hurts over it. It breaks His heart. |
| Imagine how God felt when Adam sinned. We catch a glimse |
| of how He felt if we read His response after the sin. God came |
| seeking out Adam and said, "Adam, where art thou?" In other |
| words, Adam, what have you done to yourself? Why have you |
| turned your back on the fellowship we had? Why have you |
| walked away from the only Source of Life you have?" |
| We likewise see how Jesus grieved when those He loved |
| would not believe. Read His lament over Jerusalem at the end |
| of Matthew 23. His heart was broken. Those God loved had |
| rejected Him. Terrible things would come upon them because |
| of it. |
| God's broken heart is seen in the Cross of Christ. There we |
| see the greatest tragedy ever being played out in the Son of |
| God. The most beautiful and wonderful creature who ever lived |
| becomes sin for us. The old creation dies. It was finished. |
| Of course, God so loved the world that He sent His Son for |
| us. He worked a redemption, and made a new creation. God |
| could do something about what His heart was broken over, and |
| did do something. Something eternal. |
| Never think that the fundamental attitude which God has |
| towards us when we sin is wrath. Never think God is eager or |
| desires to punish. That is not the God of the Bible. God does |
| chastise. And He is holy. Futhermore, He is going to have His |
| will. But His basic attitude towards us when we sin is hurt. It |
| breaks His heart. It killed His Son. And it hurts those He loves. |
| For a Christian, seeing the broken heart of God -- not merely |
| as a teaching or doctrine -- but really, is important. That is |
| because we need to be delivered from the legalistic attitude of |
| obeying God because we are afraid of Him. We need to stop |
| being motivated by fear. Instead, we are to obey God because |
| we love Him. Or, to put it another way, we should obey Him |
| because we don't want to "hurt" Him. |
| God's broken heart is as eternal as the Redemption itself. |
| Now, as those bought with that price, we should never want to do |
| anything which would minimize what it cost God to redeem us. |
| We should want to please Him, not only for the benefit that this is |
| for us, but for the pleasure it gives to the heart of God Himself. * |