Where It Leads
“Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”—Romans 2:4
One of the strangest admonitions in Scriptures is from Jesus: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil”—Luke 6:35.
The concept of loving one’s enemies flies in the face of our human understanding. Our natural inclination is to hate our enemies, hurt them when they hurt us, and seek revenge when we have been recipients of injustice. However, that mindset is completely antithetical to Christ’s message of love, forgiveness and salvation.
Jesus wanted and commanded us to love our enemies. Why? It is because of His kindness to us and through becoming beneficiaries of His kindness that we are to be kind to others. God’s kindness is the divine attribute that connotes His love, benevolence, and gracious concern in order to draw us into Himself for eternal salvation, thus redeeming us from sin forever. His kindness toward us is not meant as a pass to continue in sin, but to lead us to repentance. It is by understanding His kindness, which is an extension of divine grace, that we are able to see how good He really is and how bad we really are, in addition to how undeserving we are of salvation itself.
God’s kindness to us is to be paid forward to others, in the knowledge that God was kind toward us when we were lost in sin, ungrateful sinners indulging in all kinds of unrighteousness and deserving of judgment; yet He chose to be kind toward us.
I remember being a teenager in my mother’s house. I was a complete self-absorbed jerk. All I cared about was myself, my needs, my wants, and my desires. I was completely ignorant of the sacrifice that my mother made for me. She made my meals, did my laundry, and was a patient counselor, and loving mother. Even though she was a great mom, it didn’t stop me from being harsh with her or belittling her whenever there was a disagreement between us. I thought that she was old, out of touch, and completely ignorant of the greater world. It wasn’t until years later, after I grew up, got a job, got married, and had children of my own that I truly realized how bad I'd been. She had loved me and been kind to me even when I didn’t deserve it. She did it because I was her son and she loved me, but her acts of kindness weren’t appreciated until years later when I was an adult. I went back and apologized to her and thanked her for her sacrificial love and kindness toward me.
God is kind toward us because it is His nature to be so, not that He is compelled by an inner urge or outside influence. No, God is kind in and of Himself because that is simply who He is. And in His kindness toward us He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, but rather patiently allows us the opportunity to see that one day we will see how great He is, how horrible we have been, and then turn to Him in repentance and faith.
How about us? Have we presumed upon God’s kindness? Have we failed to consider how dependent we are upon Him, ignoring that everything we have, are, and do is because of His kindness? If so, may we repent, knowing that through His kindness we can see His love to us. And may our lives become so ordered as to reflect our transformed and grateful state before Him. Amen.
One of the strangest admonitions in Scriptures is from Jesus: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil”—Luke 6:35.
The concept of loving one’s enemies flies in the face of our human understanding. Our natural inclination is to hate our enemies, hurt them when they hurt us, and seek revenge when we have been recipients of injustice. However, that mindset is completely antithetical to Christ’s message of love, forgiveness and salvation.
Jesus wanted and commanded us to love our enemies. Why? It is because of His kindness to us and through becoming beneficiaries of His kindness that we are to be kind to others. God’s kindness is the divine attribute that connotes His love, benevolence, and gracious concern in order to draw us into Himself for eternal salvation, thus redeeming us from sin forever. His kindness toward us is not meant as a pass to continue in sin, but to lead us to repentance. It is by understanding His kindness, which is an extension of divine grace, that we are able to see how good He really is and how bad we really are, in addition to how undeserving we are of salvation itself.
God’s kindness to us is to be paid forward to others, in the knowledge that God was kind toward us when we were lost in sin, ungrateful sinners indulging in all kinds of unrighteousness and deserving of judgment; yet He chose to be kind toward us.
I remember being a teenager in my mother’s house. I was a complete self-absorbed jerk. All I cared about was myself, my needs, my wants, and my desires. I was completely ignorant of the sacrifice that my mother made for me. She made my meals, did my laundry, and was a patient counselor, and loving mother. Even though she was a great mom, it didn’t stop me from being harsh with her or belittling her whenever there was a disagreement between us. I thought that she was old, out of touch, and completely ignorant of the greater world. It wasn’t until years later, after I grew up, got a job, got married, and had children of my own that I truly realized how bad I'd been. She had loved me and been kind to me even when I didn’t deserve it. She did it because I was her son and she loved me, but her acts of kindness weren’t appreciated until years later when I was an adult. I went back and apologized to her and thanked her for her sacrificial love and kindness toward me.
God is kind toward us because it is His nature to be so, not that He is compelled by an inner urge or outside influence. No, God is kind in and of Himself because that is simply who He is. And in His kindness toward us He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, but rather patiently allows us the opportunity to see that one day we will see how great He is, how horrible we have been, and then turn to Him in repentance and faith.
How about us? Have we presumed upon God’s kindness? Have we failed to consider how dependent we are upon Him, ignoring that everything we have, are, and do is because of His kindness? If so, may we repent, knowing that through His kindness we can see His love to us. And may our lives become so ordered as to reflect our transformed and grateful state before Him. Amen.
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