{"id":9807,"date":"2026-07-13T21:50:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T01:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=9807"},"modified":"2026-07-13T21:50:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T01:50:36","slug":"the-very-heart-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=9807","title":{"rendered":"The Very Heart of God"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Recker4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Recker4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9808\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Recker4.jpg 400w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Recker4-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But this story of ultimate reconciliation is not just a stack of Bible verses.  It is a key theme of the whole Bible, and it is essential to how we relate to God.  We connect to God and love God because God first loves us.  God is not a punisher; God is a healer.  We fail, but God&#8217;s steadfast love &#8220;endures forever&#8221; &#8211; Psalms 136 repeats this truth twenty-six times!  The redundant message doesn&#8217;t make for the most subtle poetry, but some truths need to be drilled into thick skulls.  Despite the way that Christian history shows how we are experts at missing the point, those who know God best have always known that at the very heart of God is unfailing love.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Brian Recker, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/hell_bent.html\">Hell Bent<\/a><\/em>, p. 104-105<\/p>\n<p>Photo: Mont Saint-Michel, June 17, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But this story of ultimate reconciliation is not just a stack of Bible verses. It is a key theme of the whole Bible, and it is essential to how we relate to God. We connect to God and love God because God first loves us. God is not a punisher; God is a healer. We [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,15,48,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-love","category-redemption","category-universalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9809,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9807\/revisions\/9809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}