Lent
Do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? Romans 2:4
Jesus said that God “makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good.” Some think God thus does not care how men behave. But God’s goodness to an unbeliever is not to encourage him, but meant to woo him away from sin by God’s loving kindness. God allows people to sin over and over again. They may even sin against their own bodies and bring on sickness. Yet God heals them only to have them sin again more foully than ever. With each blessing God sends them this message: ‘Will you not turn unto Me, and praise the Giver of all goodness? Will you not repent of your sin?’
Some have said God must be hard and cruel to allow all the bad things to exist on the earth. Yet the facts show just the opposite. Here is a person who has lived 40, 50, 60, 70 or 80 years without ever serving His maker. Yet God has allowed this person to be surrounded with earthly comfort. After all that, can you call God hard and cruel? Truly it can be said of God, “He is good: for His mercy endures forever.”
But what does this have to do with those who have already come to repentance and faith in Jesus? What about those who believe in Him who has taken all sins of all people to that cross and there suffered and died to atone for them before God’s justice? Let us not forget that Christ-believers, too, are still sinners in this world. Should Christians not be sorry that they have not kept their Father’s commands in their minds and served Him with their whole heart?
The more we learn of God’s goodness toward us, may it always continue to lead us to repentance, more and more.
God the Holy Ghost, I praise Thee for Thy great mercy, and ask Thee to lead me to greater repentance and faith in Christ. Amen.