Jeremiah

As we have been studying the old testament these past few weeks I have been struggling to see how the old testament God and the new testament God are the same God. In the old testament God is angry, strict, and unloving. He is killing people left and right, and is someone to be feared. But in the new testament He is loving and caring, He is no longer killing people, He is a God you turn to in love and admiration. How is He the same God? As we where studying Jeremiah this week, I saw the old testament God in a new way. I had asked myself what does Jeremiah see in God that I do not. Jeremiah was devoted to God, he wept with God over the sins of Judah, he delivered God's message of judgment to His people over and over and over again, even though he faced persecution for doing so. If God was as wrathful as He seemed to be why was Jeremiah doing this, was he doing it out of  fear of God or love for him? I believe it was love. I think Jeremiah experienced God's love for His people in a way I never have. He understood that God was not punishing his people, but their sin. Our sin hurts God, it makes a deep wound in His heart, because it separates us from Him. God desires nothing more than to be with us, He is so in love with us that He can not bear the thought of losing one of us. It is out of this love that God inflicts His wrath upon our sin. Because of our stubbornness God often has to take drastic measures to get us to stop sinning and flee from it. Sometimes this means God has to do things that break His heart, it may mean that He has to wipe out a nation, so that another can survive. He may have to cause plagues and great suffering to come upon His people. And every one of these things breaks His heart. God weeps over our stubborn, disobedient, deceived souls. He loves us with an everlasting steadfast love. And this is what Jeremiah saw in God's judgment, this is why he wept with God, over the sins of Judah.