For many years, one of my touchstone passages in scripture has been Isaiah 61. Let me quote it for you:
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor…And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God” (Isa. 61:1-6).
This is a Messianic prophecy that Jesus reads in the synagogue and applies to himself In Luke 4. It is important for many reasons, but the reason I want to highlight today is that it reveals the heart of God for his people. Too many people, including many believers, see God as the harsh judge waiting to catch us doing something wrong like an angry parent. This is the propaganda Satan works diligently to spread. We often find this lie embedded deeply in people to whom we are ministering deliverance. Because they view God through that lens, they have taken offense at him over some disappointment for which they credit him. You can easily see how that would affect your prayer and your faith. It is impossible to warm up to that kind of God, to be intimate with Him, or even pursue him. That is the kind of God you want to avoid or hide from rather than draw close to.
But Jesus tells us that if we have seen him we have seen the Father. Whatever heart Jesus has is the same heart the Father has. God is certainly holy and just. God disciplines his children because any father who loves his children will correct them and direct them. But he is not a distant father just waiting for us to make a mistake so he can criticize, reject, or brutalize us. He is a loving father full of compassion for those who are hurting.
This Messianic passage clarifies that view. First of all, God sent his son with good news not condemnation. He sought out the poor and the broken first, rather than the rich and influential. As a good shepherd he sought first the brokenhearted who had been wounded by life, rejected and betrayed. He came with a priority to heal those hearts. He also recognized the bondage and captivity many were experiencing – addictions, sin, demonization, and so forth. He came then and he comes now with an eye for us…not to criticize but to set us free; not to say I told you so; but to show us a way out.
He also came to reverse our fortunes. He didn’t just come to provide some abstract pardon which we will eventually experience in heaven, but came to change things for us now as well as eternally. Notice the language: comfort for mourning; beauty for ashes; gladness instead of sorrow; and praise instead of despair. His goal is to restore what is broken and return what has been stolen. Ultimately, his heart is to give us a position of honor and service in the kingdom – priests of the Lord and ministers of our God
Satan would have us run from the Father, but the heart of God is that we would run to him…with our successes and our failures, with our strengths and our weaknesses, our joys and our sorrows and even our sin.
When we are at our worst, Satan will whisper that we should hide from God, hide from his anger and his disappointment. But Jesus whispers he already came for us when we were at our worst…impoverished, brokenhearted, and captive to the flesh and the things of the world. The prodigal son of Luke 15 sets the true tone. There a son has left the house, walked out on his father and squandered his inheritance. He came home only out of a sense of shame and desperation, hoping only to be a hired hand. But before the son could say a word, the Father ran to him, embraced him, and restored him to his former position of honor as a son. That is our God.
We need to know who our Father is and the heart he has for his children. God is looking out for the fallen, the weak, the broken, and the captive. He meets us there but doesn’t leave us there and he always extends the invitation to draw closer. Trust Jesus when he says he and the Father are one and they have the same heart for us.
