Do you despise God because He is so good?
“Do you despise the riches of His goodness, tolerance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” Romans 2:4
Many people in today’s secularized society have a distorted view of God. They believe that God’s goodness and patience is a kind of concession to, that it is more or less okay to live as you want. They believe that God is a kind of softy that you don’t need to take too seriously. Therefore, they despise God’s goodness and see it as a kind of weakness in God.
Anyone who believes something similar has completely misunderstood God and the Bible. The idea is that when one understands the goodness of God, it is meant to lead to repentance. That when you see God’s patience and love, the idea is that the response should be that you want to get closer to this wonderful God and leave sin. So not that you see it as a license to continue living in sin.
God’s wrath against sin
“But because of your hardness and impenitent heart, you are storing up treasures of wrath against yourself on the day of wrath when the righteous judgment of God will be revealed,” Romans 2:5
If your heart remains hard against God and does not want to accept God’s offer of grace and forgiveness, you are living dangerously. Don’t put off getting reconciled to God because God’s wrath will fall heavily on the unforgiven sin. Sin means rebellion against God.
We need to speak plain language today. People believe, or at least hope, that this thing about what happens after death will sort itself out somehow. But the fact is that God’s wrath will be revealed over sin. The sentence becomes a judgmental sentence if one has not responded to God’s offer and turned from sin to God.
God’s goodness is revealed
“He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that it is He (Jesus Christ, the Son of God) who was ordained by God to be the Judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets bear witness that whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins through His name.” Acts 10:42-43
God’s goodness is revealed to you and me through the gospel. The gospel is that Jesus took our sin penalty on the cross. God’s wrath against sin fell upon His beloved Son on Calvary’s cross. Jesus died and then rose again on the third day. Through this, God’s love and goodness to us humans has been revealed. A goodness for our sake, which meant pain, suffering and death. But, because Jesus died and rose again for us, God can now forgive us our sins and give us grace. The penalty for sin fell and reconciliation to God is now an offer to every person through Jesus.
Respond by turning from sin and putting your faith and trust in Jesus. You can be reconciled to God and go free from condemnation. Jesus wants to be your personal Savior today. It concerns your life, dear friend.
Then walk on in faith in Jesus and read and practice what the Bible teaches.
God bless you.