Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Deuteronomy 28 before reading the devotional below.
Have you ever had someone take advantage of you? I have. I had hired a contractor to do a job at my house. Less than halfway through the job, he sat down with me at my kitchen table. “I’m out of money,” he said. “The job has cost more than expected, so if we are going to go forward…” and he trailed off. At the end of the conversation, we foolishly advanced him more money. We never heard from him again. He cashed my check and never did any more work. He stopped returning my phone calls and my texts. He simply disappeared. When I realized that he’d taken advantage of me, I was angry and offended. It was hard for me to admit, but I came to realize that I was appropriately angry. Appropriately offended.
In these chapters we come face to face with the deep passions of God. God has passionately blessed his people with land and wealth. He is lovingly providing for all their needs and desires. In return, he expects them to acknowledge his leadership as their God. If, however, they reject him while continuing to take advantage of all the blessings he has showered upon them, God will be quite appropriately offended. He will take back all the blessings he has poured out on his people, and leave them curses instead. Is this the behavior of a vengeful God? No. It is the behavior of a reasonable God who refuses to be taken advantage of.
His love is neither cold nor distant. It is firey and energetic. Your emotions are part of how you are made in the image of God. Sometimes people wonder if they can trust their emotions, but this is the wrong question. God made you to have emotions. They are a part of who you are. If you accept and embrace the deeply emotional aspects of your nature, you will find that they can become a valuable and integral part of you. Perhaps the first step towards this acceptance and embrace of our emotions is to adjust our view of God to include his emotions. If you think God is cold and unfeeling, you will feel obligated to act the same way. If, however, you see God as deeply and inherently emotional, you will find yourself to be release to mirror God by being deeply and inherently emotional yourself.