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Don’t you realize how kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Or don’t you care? Can’t you see how kind he has been in giving you time to turn from your sin? – Romans 2:4

 

God’s kindness leads to repentance. We once were lost, irretrievable sinners, but when we realize that God still loves us enough to forgive us in Christ, it will break our wills and cause us to cry out to Him for mercy.

David was so overwhelmed by God’s kindness in promising to bless his future household that he exclaimed, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And now, O God, in addition to everything else, you speak of giving me a lasting dynasty! You speak as though I were someone very great, O Lord God” (1 Chronicles 17:16-17). Such honor and kindness from God made David a humble, not proud, man.

Paul demolished the idea that God’s goodness grants a person self-righteousness. The Jews he so often preached to felt this way when comparing themselves to the Gentiles (Romans 2). We must never fail to remember that we are no better than anyone else, and if not for the kindness of God, we would be just like everyone else!

Be humbled today over the fact that, in His kindness, God has forgiven you. Never let that forgiveness be perverted into an attitude of superiority. Stay repentant and ever grateful that He has transformed your life. This continual gratitude and repentance will keep you from pride and religious arrogance from now until you see Him face-to-face!

2020-12-31T10:53:17-07:00

But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves. For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. – Romans 1:18-19

Humanism tells us, “I’m okay . . . you’re okay” and says that salvation is little more than a contribution to one’s own personal happiness. As Christians, however, we know that without the salvation purchased by Jesus’ blood, humanity is hopeless.

Nowhere is the wickedness of humanity described in more graphic detail than in Romans 1 and Psalm 10. Paul begins Romans with a thorough description of the wickedness of humankind, coupled with a justification for the wrath of God. He continues with a description of how people have rejected the truth of God because of pride (Romans 1:21) and how such rejection has caused their minds to concoct unspeakable evils, such as idolatry and sodomy

(v. 27). In Psalm 10:7, David describes the wickedness of people’s motives and speech, which leads to abuses of power in their relationships with their fellow man.

Before we can ever get people saved, we must get them lost. Who among us does not see within himself the awful fruits of rebellion these chapters describe? Let us thank God today that He is willing to forgive our past and to accept us as His very own children. We should be so grateful that we would never entertain the thought of turning our backs on Him.

2020-07-13T00:00:00-06:00
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