“To know that God must deliver his people (being the God he is) is a deeper truth than knowing he will.” – J. Alec Motyer

I was recently reading Motyer’s “The Prophecy of Isaiah” and this sentence jumped off the page and stirred my heart to wonder.  Why must God deliver his people?  Is he obliged to us in some way?  Is he in our debt? Is there some external position description for the job of being God that he must conform to in order to retain his divine position?

Of course not!  Any and all of these notions are sheer nonsense.

Rather in the final analysis he is only obliged to himself—(being the God he is).  What a parenthetical statement that is!  So what kind of God is he?

He is a God of love.  In fact he is love; in his essential essence he is love.  And all of his other attributes are infused with love.  He is the highest definition of love.  His love is loyal to those upon whom he has set his care and affection.  His love is never fickle, nor is he whimsical in his commitment to act for the good of his people.

He is a powerful God.  In the Scriptures there are three primary evidentiary examples of God’s power—his power in the creation of all that is; his power evidenced in delivering his people from bondage in the Exodus event; and his power in raising Christ from the dead.  All of these exhibits A, B and C of God’s power are life-giving or redemptive.  His power is at its most powerful when it manifests his goodness.

God is a God of truth.  The Scriptures tell us it is impossible for God to lie.  That is because truth is his nature.  So he must be true in what he says and his actions must be true to who he is in his essence.

Being the God he is . . . is another way of saying that God’s character is the ultimate assurance of his people.  That is the best news ever, because his character never changes.

The point of this deep truth is not to suggest that God is at our beck and call.  Nor does it mean that his deliverance/salvation must come the way we envision it will come or on our timetable.  But the point of this deep truth is to give our hearts a place to rest; and to give us a firm foundation upon which we can stand in the midst of troubles and trials; and to give us a place of hope from which we can keep moving forward in confidence.

So, if you have a spare moment or sixty this week, you might want to ponder the kind of God that God is and let your roots go deep into these deep truths.

Pastor Rick