So the phrase that really stuck out to me when reading Romans 1-2 was Gods kindness is meant to lead you to repentance in 2:4. This completely destroys the God is a loving God and will let everyone into heaven argument. Yes He loves us but you cant take advantage of His love. His love must be returned through repentance and surrender to Him. It also makes me think about discipline. Growing up, my parents disciplined me through the opposite of kindness (in my opinion 😉): theyd get upset and spank me and tell me I needed to be better, etc. Id mostly repent because I didnt want to get spanked or yelled at again. But the times when Ive done something wrong and it actually hurts someone and they treat me with kindness instead of spankings, those are the times when Im truly moved to repentance and seek for opportunities to apologize and make it up to them. I can take a beating but inflicting pain on someone else is something I cant take. It kind of reminds me of the phrase kill them with kindness. What a testimony it is when someone wrongs us and we respond with love. Thats something I definitely want to work on after reading this. One last thing it triggers in my mind is how it is much better to say repent because God loves you rather than repent so you dont face Gods wrath or go to hell. It is a much more sincere response when someone responds to love instead of fear. When I was a kid, I used to fear Gods wrath and punishment. In order to avoid that, I would obey and do what I was supposed to do. But that is an unhealthy fear of God and it never moved me to draw close to Him. He was more like someone I wanted to please so He wouldnt get mad, and then Id hide from Him if I sinned because that meant He was probably mad. But were not supposed to live in fear. God loves us and wants us to come near to Him daily. Christians dont have to fear punishment for sins because Jesus paid it all. When you sin, thank Jesus. He died for the sin you just committed. Thinking about everything Jesus did for me and thanking Him when I sin is one of the hardest things to do. Jesus was so physically destroyed that you couldnt recognize Him and here I am committing sins and not being punished for it. Thats love. Thats grace. Thats what makes me want to be better. His kindness moves me to repentance.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 01:18:51 +0000
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