Brought to Repentance

What brings a person to Godly repentance? Is it fear that God will strike him down or load him with troubles in this world? Or fear of hell in the hereafter? Or maybe a desire for rewards in heaven? They could all play some part, initially. But according to the Bible, the reason we are brought to repentance is God’s kindness. Yes kindness. Romans 2:4b (NIV) specifically tells us that God’s kindness leads us to repentance.

Indeed, kindness is one of God’s attributes. Nehemiah (Ne 9:17) talks about God’s kindness in His dealings with rebellious Israel during their wilderness experience. In Psalm 117:2 the psalmist tells us to praise the Lord “for his merciful kindness is great toward us”. Isaiah 54 tells us that God’s kindness is everlasting and will not depart from His people. Joel 2:13 (Amplified) tells us that God is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness.”

It’s this kindness that prevented God from letting sinful mankind languish in his sin; that prevent God from allowing mankind to be lost forever with no means of escape. It was this loving-kindness that brought Jesus to earth, so He could make, for us, a way back to the Father. How miserable we would be if this were not so! It would mean living in a world without hope, without a future; a world in which mankind was condemned to exist in lawlessness and ever-increasing despair, then face an eternity forever separated from their Creator.

When we begin to understand the magnitude of what God did for us, the magnitude of what He saved us from, the magnitude of what it cost Him; when we begin to see His tender heart toward us, and His longing that none should perish, it’s easy to bow before Him and confess we are sinners and in need of salvation. What a small thing it is for us to humble ourselves before a God whose character is one of such boundless mercy and love; a God Who cares about us and Who wants only the best for us; A God Who yearns for us to come to Him so, as Ephesians 2:7 says, “that in the ages to come he (God) might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

Who, indeed, is like our loving, merciful, kind God?

Until next time,

Sylvia