RomansSample

Exploiting God’s Kindness

Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 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? – Rom 2:3-4

Taking advantage of God’s grace is something his people have always been guilty of. Micah writes of Judah in Mic 3:11

Its heads give judgment for a bribe;

its priests teach for a price;

its prophets practice divination for money;

yet they lean on the Lord and say,

“Is not the Lord in the midst of us?

No disaster shall come upon us.”

Judah’s leaders were doing things that displeased God. They were not living as he wanted. Yet they expected him to help them in difficulty and keep them safe from disaster!

The author of Sirach wrote to the Jews at a later date (Sirach 5:5-6)

Do not be so confident of atonement

that you add sin to sin.

Do not say, "His mercy is great,

he will forgive the multitude of my sins,"

for both mercy and wrath are with him,

and his anger rests on sinners.

Yes, it is true that God will forgive us no matter how great our sin. But that shouldn’t cause us to take sin lightly. As Paul says, God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance, that is, a change in our attitude that affects our actions and life choices.  So rather than choosing sin presuming that God will anyway forgive, we should say

But thou, our God, art kind and true,

patient, and ruling all things in mercy.

For even if we sin we are thine, knowing thy power;

but we will not sin, because we know that we are accounted thine.

For to know thee is complete righteousness,

and to know thy power is the root of immortality.

(Wisdom of Solomon 15:1-3)

Or as Paul says in Rom 6, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!.... We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Every day you have many choices to make. Do you take time to think which choice pleases God? Or do you go with an “act first, seek forgiveness later” attitude?