God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
While God is not pleased with my sin and may discipline me in order to turn me from destructive paths and practices, His love for me does not diminish in any degree. He gave himself for my sins in their entirety, so that I might have His love in its entirety… Accepting this reality of God’s unchanging regard is necessary for us to make progress in the Christian life.
Though a man of sorrow, He was even on earth anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows. Does this seem strange?... Shall we wonder that there was divine gladness in the heart of Him who came into this world not by constraint but willingly, not with a burning sense of wrong but with a grateful sense of high privilege, and that He had a blessed consciousness of fellowship with His Father who sent Him, during the whole of His pilgrimage through this vale of tears?
