Hoarding is the practice of buying and storing large quantities of a commodity, often to sell later at higher prices or to avoid future shortages. It is remarkable that certain servants of God hoard the love of God by keeping it for themselves, while artificially creating a sense of scarcity by spreading the falsehood that God is an angry God. In truth, the love of God is neither scarce nor exclusive — it is freely available to all people. Yet these self-serving servants deceive others by portraying God as a wrathful figure who constantly afflicts people with sickness and misfortune.
Destructive Heresies
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them —bringing swift destruction on themselves.
2 Peter 2:1 (NIV)
The problem with many of today’s preachers is that they threaten people with the dire consequences of sin, leaving their congregations in constant fear of God’s wrath whenever they face a crucial decision. Gripped by this fear, people surrender their responsibilities to the very preachers who instilled that fear in them, rather than turning to God directly. They are afraid to approach God on their own because of the false impressions these preachers have created—impressions designed to keep their followers dependent on them, rather than connected to God.
What they fail to understand is that as one group of people matures in their faith and draws closer to God, there will always be another group ready to be taught about His love. Somehow, preachers are deceived by their own insecurity, and they are reluctant to release the people God has entrusted to them, failing to teach them the love of God.
The Israelites Witnessed The Destruction of Their Enemies
In the greatness of your majesty
you threw down those who opposed you.
You unleashed your burning anger;
it consumed them like stubble.
Exodus 15:7 (NIV)
After witnessing God’s mighty act of drowning Pharaoh’s entire army in the Red Sea, the Israelites were seized with terror. They feared that the same wrath of God that had destroyed their enemies could just as easily be turned against them, and so their relationship with God became rooted in fear rather than love. What they failed to grasp was that it was God’s deep love for them that had driven Him to defeat their enemies in the first place. This misunderstanding is subtly reflected in the Song of Miriam, which dwells at length on the destruction wrought by God’s hand, yet speaks of their salvation in only a single breath.
To encourage this misconception, many preachers portray God as a wrathful God by retelling stories from the Old Testament — how God struck certain people dead when they touched the Ark of the Covenant, or when they entered the Holy of Holies without proper preparation, or when they lit unauthorised fire instead of waiting for the holy fire that God Himself would send to consume the offering. When we view these accounts solely from the perspective of those who perished, God can appear to be a fearsome and furious God. However, the deeper truth is that God never desired the death of these people; rather, as unholy beings, they were simply unable to withstand the overwhelming holiness of God. For this reason, in ancient times, God restricted people from entering His presence — not out of anger, but because His heart grieved for those who perished due to their unholiness.
Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’
Ezekiel 33:11 (NIV)
That same God is still not pleased with the death of sinners, and this reveals His unchanging character. Because God could not bear the loss of the unholy and the sinful, He devised a plan to make them holy, so that they could come into His presence without forfeiting their lives. This plan was conceived even before the creation of the world — a plan to reveal His immeasurable love by giving His own Son as an atonement for our sin.
God Revealed His Love
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:16-17 (NIV)
Even while we were still sinners, God gave His Son to rescue us from eternal death. Though God dwells in heaven, He longed to live among us — yet our unholiness made this impossible, for it would bring death upon us. For this reason, God sent His Son in human flesh, just as we are. Many believe that during His time on earth, Jesus was simultaneously fully God and fully man. However, if that were the case, no one would have survived His presence — just as in the days of the Old Testament, where the unbearable holiness of God was too overwhelming for mankind to endure. Although Jesus lived a perfectly holy life, He came as a man to demonstrate that a holy life was attainable for people as well, so that they could enter into a personal relationship with a Holy God.
The love of our Father God sustains our lives on this earth and prepares us to exchange this mortal life for an immortal one when we take our last breath. The tragedy is that, despite the abundance of God’s love and grace, we still struggle to see Him as He truly is — a God defined entirely by love. There is nothing in Him but love. Therefore, if we perceive a wrathful God, it is not our Father God — it is a distorted and imaginary replica created by the devil to deceive those deeply loved by God. Through this deception, believers become unable to grasp the full redemption God has provided through His Son. May God open our eyes to see Him as He truly is — a God overflowing with love — and may He teach us to know Him more and more with each passing day.
God Would Not Show His Anger to Us
Believers are often encouraged to memorize verses about worldly blessings — sometimes even double portions — yet they are frequently deprived of the fundamental truth that God is not angry with them and does not punish them. A compelling counter-argument to those servants of God who claim that God is punishing believers is this: if God intended to punish us, why did He choose to punish His own Son on our behalf? Many servants of God have unknowingly become instruments of the devil, concealing the love of God and instead threatening believers with the dire consequences of the wrath of God.
God Himself promises that He will not be angry with us, comparing this assurance to His covenant never to destroy the earth by flood again, as He did in the days of Noah. However, many believers question whether God has kept this promise, pointing to the devastating floods and tsunamis that continue to claim lives around the world. What they fail to understand is the distinction between the ordinary floods of the present age and the final destruction that will accompany the second coming of Jesus Christ. Regardless, God’s promise stands firm — He will not destroy this world by flood.
To me this is like the days of Noah,
when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth.
So now I have sworn not to be angry with you,
never to rebuke you again.
Isaiah 54:9 (NIV)
God Guarantees His Grace To All
God’s grace is renewed every morning, and it is given to us so that we might use it to understand His love — a truth that is rarely preached. Paul declares that where sin increases, grace increases all the more (Romans 5:20). When a believer embraces this grace with the right perspective, they begin to experience the love of God and are naturally led to repentance — turning away from sinful ways so as not to face regret later (2 Corinthians 7:10).
At the same time, some believers misuse this very grace as a licence to sin further, reasoning that grace will simply abound to cover it. But God does not increase His grace to provide greater opportunity for sin — He increases it to draw us toward repentance. Unless we make use of the grace freely given to us in the right spirit, we will not be freed from our sinful ways; instead, we will sink deeper into them. Yet, fully aware of our weaknesses, stubbornness, and disobedience, God graciously promises that He will never withdraw His grace from us.
Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
Isaiah 54:10 (NIV)
God further reveals the nature of His grace through His response to Paul’s prayer. When Paul pleaded with God to act according to his own desire, God responded by saying that He would not remove the thorn as Paul requested, but instead would sustain him with grace in the midst of his weakness. Our greatest weakness, perhaps, is our tendency to perceive God as an angry and wrathful God. This promise of God offers us a true assurance — that no matter how religious leaders portray God as angry, or however we ourselves have come to see Him that way, He will not withdraw His grace from us. Out of His boundless compassion, He remains patient, so that at some point in our earthly lives, we may come to know our Father God for who He truly is — the very embodiment of love, and nothing else.
God Loved Us First
We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19 (NIV)
These are the words of John, widely known as the “Apostle of Love.” Until we truly come to know God our Father as a loving God, loving Him according to His greatest Commandment will remain a challenge:
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Deuteronomy 6:5 (NIV)
Setting aside the false teachings of certain leaders, we must read the Word of God for ourselves, guided by the Holy Spirit, as promised to us:
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
John 14:26 (NIV)
When we neglect reading the Word of God for ourselves, spiritual leaders begin rationing it to us — steering it in directions that shift our focus away from God and draw us into their own folds, where the father of lies reigns as head. The entire Bible unveils God’s love toward us, and the New Testament in particular grants us the grace to recognize that love without confusion or error. We must therefore discipline ourselves to read the Word and learn to hear His voice. As we grow accustomed to this, we will come to truly know the depth of God’s love — and we will find ourselves immersed and drenched in it. And it is then that we will say…
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)
The Jordan Valley 
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