#DailyDevotion You Know God By His Name
Easter Week 3 Tuesday
Read Ex 34:1–28
Exo 34:6-7 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, (7) keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
When Moses renews the covenant the people broke with the Lord and he brought up new tablets for the Lord to write upon, the Lord revealed his name to Moses. Now a name says something about someone. It reveals their very being. The very nature of the Lord is revealed to us here. What does the Lord reveal about himself?
There are ten things. Ten is generally a number of completion, of perfection. The Lord, the Lord is merciful and gracious. The Lord does not give us what we deserve. He treats us better than we deserve. He rewards us with good things though we spurn his will and his ways. He provides for all though we do not always believe in him.
The Lord, the Lord is slow to anger. While the world cannot see it we with his revealed word do. It took centuries before flooding the world saving only Noah and his family and yet he sent Noah to preach to them to repent. He sent Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to preach to Canaan and let them be for four hundred years before sending the Israelites to wipe them out. We need not even go how long we put up with his own people, the Israelites, before sending the Assyrians and Babylonians. Now he has been patient with us these last two thousand years, sending out the message of reconciliation in Christ Jesus before bringing down destruction in these last days.
The Lord, the Lord abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love and faithfulness. Oh how often the Lord blesses his people for the sake of his name and his promises. When we should have been destroyed and instead we are preserved it is these qualities of the Lord which keep us.
The Lord, the Lord forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin but by no means lets the guilty go unpunished. It is the very nature of the Lord God to forgive. This is seen on the cross of Jesus Christ. There the sin of the world is forgiven our transgression are no longer held to us. Yet to keep us from continuing in sin and so that we may not treat his grace cheaply, we often still have to bear the temporal consequences of our sins. Those who will not receive his word of forgiveness in Jesus Christ will receive the eternal consequences of their sins.
Heavenly Father, grant us faith to believe in your name and the name of your Son Jesus Christ, that we may receive all your benefits to us and may we who bear your name go forth doing what your name benefits. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.