Well, God is loving, and God is patient, and God is kind.

But is God also severe?

Can we say that?

Any perceptive Bible reader who believes in God's absolute sovereignty is eventually

going to ask this question, like a listener named Tainika, I, Pastor John, I'm wondering

if it's wrong to say that God is severe.

Even in prayer, in a train of thought, I was led to use that exact word severe, although

it seemed to me to be sacrilegious.

After looking it up in the dictionary, it appeared to me that some definitions of the word

severe are negative.

In the prayer, I was thinking about God's character, that he is loving, kind, patient,

and I added severe to the list, and like I said, it didn't sound right.

I wondered if serious or sober are better words, to name a few examples that I found in

the dictionary would be harsh, unnecessarily extreme, grave.

I'd love your thoughts on this, Pastor John, is God severe?

I think maybe the reason why, for Tainika, listing severity as one of God's attributes

or as a definition of His character sounds awkward to us is mainly because we generally

expect the attributes of God or the marks of His character to be carried through continuously

in all His action.

For example, if we call Him wise, we don't mean, well, sometimes He's wise and sometimes

He's foolish.

When we call Him good, we don't mean, well, sometimes He's good and sometimes He's bad.

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