God has feelings and desires

This year, we are taking a look at the emotions that are described in the Bible and what we can learn from the passages. It would remiss to only consider what the Bible says about man’s emotions. God made us in his image, and given the biblical passages that describe God’s emotions and Christ’s as well, we can assume that this idea includes emotions.

God experiences emotions

We know God is love from 1 John 4:8 – and I believe this is different from the emotions we have. God and love are the same thing this says, as opposed to ‘God is delighted’, for example. The first, God is love, indicates his nature, whereas the second indicates a temporary feeling based on the present circumstances. To be fair, I think God is probably pleased and sad and angry and compassionate all at the same time, since he is infinite and with each of us at the same time. He must experience our emotions or the emotions of the moment with us – so he is different, but the point here is that he does experience emotions. So do we.

Our God is personal, and therefore feels in interacting with us. He may well be pleased to spend time with us or see that we follow his direction. He is likely sad or angry over the injustices that we see as we walk down the streets of our nation. He is angry at the injustices and abuses that we have suffered as well. Just as he expressed these emotions in the Bible.

God’s emotions in the Bible

In Mark 3:5, we find that Jesus is angry that the synagogue leaders are not interested in helping a lame man, they have no compassion. Yet Jesus does.

Jesus weeps at the distress that the death of his friend Lazarus has caused. He is sad at the brokenness of this world and the presence of death. John 11:35 is the shortest verse in the Bible. Perhaps those who numbered the verses for us also thought it remarkable that Jesus was overcome with sadness as we can be as well.

With the wickedness that abounded in the time of Noah, God expresses regret and broken-heartedness, yet still pleasure in Noah (Genesis 6:5-8).

One of my favorite verses is in the Old Testament, Zephaniah 3:17. ‘The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing;’ he delights in you and sings with joy. God doesn’t just have emotions, but he feels them deeply and it moves him to action. He sings over you.

The very famous Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that god has plans for us, for prospering, a hope and a future. This indeed shows us that he has desires for us. He has good desires for us.

So, we see that God has these emotions: anger, compassion, sadness, regret, broken-heartedness, delight, joy, pleasure. He experiences all these emotions and surely more, just as we do. He longs for our good, is that not an emotion as well?

God is good

God is love and in his infinite love, he created us in his image. Part of that is to live with emotion. God experiences emotion along with us. Have you sensed the Holy Spirit in you when you have been sad, seen injustice, or felt compassion? This too is our mighty Lord sharing that feeling. And in his emotion, he is good. he is never hard or irrational, his nature is such that he is good. He is love. His emotions and desires toward us are for good. Now we need simply believe it.