The Kindness of God--Romans 2:4
Day 5
I like how Nate Pickowicz proceeds in The Kindness of God: Beholding His Goodness in a Cruel World from explaining God’s kindness in the process of salvation to how God’s kindness works with repentance.
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about these things and many times, my general behavior belies my lack of attention to my faith.
But sitting in a dentist’s chair is a good place to think about repentance. 🙂
Ever since a piece of my tooth crumbled away (while I was sitting at the optometrist’s getting fit for prescription glasses–the deterioration of my body continues apace), I’ve had a “meat tooth” that’s driven me crazy.
Literally, every bite of food I’ve had for months lodged in that small, jagged gap between and under my tooth–and it hurt.
And I’m a big baby.
I’m sure no one will ever want to go out to dinner with us again because just about after every bite I have to use one of those portable floss gadgets to dig out a hunk of meat from that gap and no one wants to see me, mouth agape, sawing away at my tooth.
I had a minute though to think through what Pickowicz said about grace and mercy.
(And mercy I needed because I must be part Cape Buffalo. It took FOUR shots of novocaine to get me numb enough to fill my tooth–two in the nerve, and finally with everyone’s patience shot, directly into the gum under the tooth).
The dentist chair seems like the last place someone would want to get theological but believe me, when the dentist was leaning over for me for the fourth time with a foot long needle spitting novocaine, I wondered if this was my consequence for any one of my numerous transgressions.
But that’s not how grace and mercy works:
Pickowicz writes:
“Grace and mercy work together. And both proceed from the depths of who God is. We could say that grace is unmerited favor, while mercy is undeserved forbearance. Or to put it another way, God’s grace is the blessing that He gives to others that they have not earned, while His mercy is the withholding of punishment that they have earned.”
I think that’s important for me to understand. Getting jabbed four times isn’t my punishment from something I’ve done–although it sucks–just like Karen getting a cancerous tumor wasn’t an indication of some lack of virtue on her part.
But that doesn’t mean that our lack of virtue doesn’t put us in peril.
It does.
And it doesn’t mean that since we have a strong faith that we aren’t in peril either.
In his warning to the Israelites in Romans 2, (for a chosen people, they seem to be awfully recalcitrant toward God and dumb as a bag of hair for most of the Bible), Paul writes:
Romans 2:4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and restraint and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
I particularly like Paul’s formulation here and how PIckowicz includes it in his treatise about God’s kindness and repentance.
I assume sometimes that because I have faith and believe in Jesus Christ as my savior that I’m safe from God’s wrath when actually, having faith in Jesus Christ should spur me to REPENT my sins.
Thus avoiding God’s wrath.
But somewhere between the 2nd and 4th novocaine shot, as I was wondering if I should just get up and go to the cat’s vet to have my tooth fixed, I realized that repentance HAS to be supernatural and from God.
Because no one just says, I’m wrong and I’m sorry, if there hasn’t been SOMETHING deep inside that spurred that.
Pickowicz notes:
“Repentance is not simply something we conjure out of thin air. God must do a work within our hearts to produce it, but we must understand that the origin of this gift resides within God–in His goodness and kindness toward us.”
I think I’m a huge benefactor of God’s kindness and because He is so patient and kind with me, I let myself be lulled into the mistake that my utter wrongness about some things I think, say, and do is approval for how I live.
Karen said she appreciated my confession in this space as to how awful I was in Durham the other day when we couldn’t find a Mexican restaurant–because reasons.
What prompted that confession?
Self-evaluation isn’t easy for me. Exposing myself and my peccadillos to others doesn’t feel exactly safe–but I’m learning how God works through those confessions and how that exposure leads to repentance.
In fact, I seem to be more amazed at God’s patience with people more brazen with their sinful nature than I am, than humbled by His patience with me.
Wilhemus a Brakel (d. 1711) wrote over 300 years ago in The Christian’s Reasonable Service:
“The goodness of God is the reason why a believer, even after many backslidings, is motivated by renewal to return to the Lord.”
I’m not just a backslider. I’m a frontslider too. 🙂
That I need to make right what I’ve done wrong, through repentance, isn’t natural.
I obtain this grace and mercy through God’s patience, forbearance and KINDNESS toward me.
Kent Hansen describes how Jesus demonstrates this spirit in A Word of Grace:
“Hardest, but most important of all, community requires of us a trusting acceptance that Christ loves us and loves those who irritate us most with equal ardor so that our hearts become open and capacious for the lost and the damaged. God’s express intention is that repentance be obtained through kindness, forbearance and patience, Christ demonstrated this spirit when he prayed for a Judas who betrayed him, dined with sinners, washed feet that in a matter of hours would run away from him, reached out to a Peter who denied him, loved James and John who misrepresented him, and forgave his murderers.”
I don’t have that kind of forbearance and patience.
No one, really, but Christ, does.
I just wanted to get through my tooth filling without slugging the dentist or soiling my pants. More than novocaine, thinking things through helped. 🙂
Lord, we confess that we take Your kindness for granted. We are slow to repent and we think lightly of the grace You extend to us.
Lord, help us to never forget that it is Your love that transforms us. Fill us with humility, so that we will be quick to repent and eager to walk in obedience.
Amen.