“When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us…” (Tit. 3:4-6). “The kindness of God leads you to repentance…” (Rom. 2:4). “As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with … kindness….” (Col. 3:12).
Heavenly Father, thank you for being incomparably, relentlessly, extravagantly kind to us. Through our union with Jesus, we live in a perpetual state of your welcome, compassion, gentleness and affection. “Hallelujah!”
And your kindness isn’t the “sweet” that you have to balance out with some of your “sour.” You’re not kind until it “no longer works,” and you have to be a bit harsh with us. Your kindness leads us to repentance; our repentance doesn’t lead you to be kind. Another, “Hallelujah!” comes easy this Monday morning.
We repent, Father. First and foremost, we repent of not believing you love us as much as you say you do (Eph.3:18-19). We repent of under-believing the Gospel, and everything you say is now true about us. We repent of assuming you just have to be like us—that is moody, subject to irritation, triggerable, radioactive-reactive when we “behave badly.” You canceled our sin, not us. You don’t “put up with us,” you put us “in Christ” (Col. 3:1-4). Even today you will use your kindness to lead us to repentance. Thank you.
We don’t need an election year to reveal how easy it is for us—even as believers, to “show contempt for the riches of your kindness” (Rom.2:4). We do so by justifying our contemptuous thoughts, words, and actions towards others.
Father, by the power that raised Jesus from the dead, enable us to believe and obey this one verse today, then tomorrow: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). So Very Amen.