Today’s Reading | Romans 2:1-16
Responding to Kindness
What attribute of God’s character often leads people to repentance? We might think that it would be His justice or His wrath. We might think what God needs to do is hammer people into repentance. In today’s reading however, we realize it is something different. According to verse four, it is God’s kindness that leads people to repentance. It is incredible to grasp the contrast shown here between God’s kindness and man’s stubbornness. Paul wrote in the previous chapter that all men stand before God condemned. Man cannot save himself and is guilty before God. Although every man deserves hell, God’s kindness has provided a way of escape. God sent His Son to the earth that we might find forgiveness of sin. According to Paul, God’s riches, tolerance, and patience ought to bring us to the point of repentance. Instead, man responds to such kindness with stubbornness and with an unrepentant heart. Instead of seeking after God, man is self seeking and rejects the truth. Man, by nature, would rather follow after evil than live by the plan of God. How have you responded to God’s kindness and grace? Does it lead you to greater service?
Today’s Questions
Say What?
Observation: What do I see?
So What?
Interpretation: What does it mean?
Now What?
Application: How does it apply to me?
Then What?
Implementation: What do I do?