God's True Nature: Grace

"For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." (Malachi 3: 6)

The last prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi presented the true picture of God our Loving Father. In the Old Testament, he was seeking honor, yet found none among the disobedient Israelites.

"A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?" (Malachi 1: 6)

The fact is that he would not find honor among any of us:

"Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Psalm 53: 3)

The problem was never that God was an angry deity looking to punish us for any one slip-up. Looking back at the verse above, because God does not change, therefore Jacob, Israel, the Israelites were not wiped out.

Many people have a tendency to say "God doesn't change; therefore, you are going to get hammered for every sin you have ever committed!"

Wrong.

God does not change, and therefore, He is gracious to us. All we have to do is believe:

"And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth," (Exodus 34: 6)

and

"The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." (Psalm 103: 8)

and also

"The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy." (Psalm 145: 8)


God does not change, therefore you and I can rest assured that He will not punish us for our  sins, because He punished our sins, all of them, in His Son:

"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2: 1-2)

and

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)