Judging God or Loving God....or both?

I was reading the book of Amos last night. Scary stuff!

This book mostly consists of Gods judgement warnings against Israel, Judah and other nations surrounding. Right from verse 1, there is statements that were given to Amos from God about what God will do to the nations and how He will make them suffer due to their wrong doings and sin.

Some of the things that God will punish these nations on are the following:

Past Sin, Individual Acts, Broken Promises, Hidden Enmity of the Heart, Incorrect ambition, deceiving, lies, no compassion, Worshipping other Gods and recommitting the same sin over and over.
Reading these short Old Testament book, makes me think that God is this scary, un-compassionate God who just judges people and has no love.
Then you read the New Testament and you have this beautiful picture of a calm, loving Jesus who helps people, a real example of pure love and peace.
I’m confused!

It makes me think, was there only judgement in the Old Testament and only love in the New Testament. Well...No.

There was love in both parts of the bible. God always expressed love and grace before He went on about judging sin. He gave chance after chance for people to come right (Israelites and other nations), but they chose to ignore Him. The difference between the testaments is that in the Old Testament there was judgement in history whereas the New Testament talks about judgement at the end of history! It’s the same judgement. God judged the nations there and then, whereas in the New Testament, judgement only is going to happen at the end, the FINAL judgement around the 2^nd coming of Christ! Jesus also spoke about judgement; take a look at Matthew 5:29-30 for example. There are multiple other references in the New Testament where Jesus talks about the ‘coming’ judgement of God the Father.

Regards love; it seems that there was more love spread in the New Testament in the days of Jesus! Remember, Jesus IS God. They are the same person, the same Spirit and the same ONE!

If you read verses like Exodus 34:6-7 in the Old testament, God shows what kind of God He is, Loving, gracious and faithful. This is His way and all of this is professed before judging the nations. God gave the nations the choice to choose, they chose other idols to worship (many times) and God punished them.
Jesus is no different to His Father, being the same Spirit; they both express the same love to us!
The difference...The nations suffered in the Old Testament due to their turned against God. In the New Testament, God was so ‘loving’, that He sent His only son to die...for us...forever! All our sin, past sin and future sin has been out on Jesus shoulders when He was crucified, and all our sin is already forgiven and forgotten WHEN:

• We believe that Jesus God for us, for our sins and ascended to Heaven
• We confess our sin to God
• Ask for forgiveness everyday
• Try and repent from committing the same sin over and over

Thank God, that we have a God that is so loving, gracious and faithful to a sinning nation.

Amen