It Is Very Important to Understand God’s Disposition
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| It Is Very Important to Understand God’s Disposition |
Almighty God says, “The disposition of God is a subject that seems very abstract and one that is not easily accepted, for His disposition is unlike man’s personality. God, too, has emotions of pleasure, anger, sorrow, and happiness, but such emotions also differ from those of man. God has His own being and possessions. All that He expresses and manifests are representations of His substance and His identity. His being, possessions, as well as substance and identity cannot be replaced by any man. His disposition encompasses His love for mankind, comforting of mankind, hatred of mankind, and even more so, a thorough understanding of mankind. The personality of man, however, may be optimistic, lively, or callous. The disposition of God is one that belongs to the Ruler of the living beings among all things, to the Lord of all creation. His disposition represents honor, power, nobility, greatness, and most of all, supremacy. His disposition is the symbol of authority and all that is righteous, beautiful, and good. Moreover, it is a symbol of how God cannot be suppressed or attacked by the darkness and any enemy force, as well as a symbol of how He cannot be (and indeed is not allowed to be) offended by any created being. His disposition is the symbol of the highest power. No person or persons may or can disturb His work or His disposition. But the personality of man is no more than a mere symbol of the slight superiority of man over beast. Man in and of himself has no authority, no autonomy, and no ability to transcend the self, just a substance that submits in a cowardly manner to manipulation by any person, occurrence, or thing. The pleasure of God is due to the existence and emergence of righteousness and light; because of the destruction of darkness and evil. He takes pleasure because He has brought the light and a good life to mankind; His pleasure is one of righteousness, a symbol of the existence of all that is positive and, most of all, a symbol of auspiciousness. The anger of God is due to the existence of injustice and the disturbance it causes that are harming His mankind; because of the existence of evil and darkness, the existence of things that drive out the truth, and even more so because of the existence of things that oppose what is good and beautiful. His anger is a symbol that all things negative no longer exist and, moreover, is a symbol of His holiness. His sorrow is due to mankind, for whom He has hopes but who has fallen into darkness, because the work He does on man does not reach His expectations, and because the mankind He loves cannot all live in the light. He feels sorrow for the innocent mankind, for the honest but ignorant man, and for the good but ambivalent man. His sorrow is a symbol of His goodness and of His mercy, a symbol of beauty and of kindness. His happiness, of course, comes from defeating His enemies and gaining the good faith of man. Moreover, it comes from the expulsion and destruction of all enemy forces and mankind receiving a good and peaceful life. The happiness of God is unlike the joy of man; rather, it is the feeling of receiving pleasant fruits, a feeling even greater than joy. His happiness is a symbol of mankind breaking free of suffering from now on, and a symbol of mankind entering a world of light. The emotions of mankind, on the other hand, all exist for the purposes of his own interests, not for righteousness, light, or what is beautiful, and least of all for the grace of Heaven. The emotions of mankind are selfish and belong to the world of darkness. They are not for the will, much less for the plan of God, and so man and God can never be spoken of in the same breath. God is forever supreme and ever honorable, while man is forever low and ever worthless. This is because God is forever making sacrifices and devoting Himself to mankind; man, however, forever takes and labors only for himself. God is forever laboring for the existence of mankind, yet man never contributes anything to the light or righteousness. Even if man labors for a time, it is weak and cannot withstand the slightest blow, for the labor of man is always for himself and not for others. Man is always selfish, while God is forever selfless. God is the source of all that is just, good, and beautiful, while man is the successor and expresser of all ugliness and evil. God will never alter His substance of righteousness and beauty, yet man can, at any time, betray righteousness and stray far from God.”
from “It Is Very Important to Understand God’s Disposition” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
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