Your Kindness Leads Me to Repentance

“I remember surprising one of my children with something that they were not expecting. I won’t name them in order to protect their reputation, however, after blessing them with something that they had wanted for so long, they did something later that day that really disappointed me. I sat them down and said, “How could you do that after all I’ve done for you?”

It’s interesting that I’ve heard God whisper those same words into my ears. It seems to be part of our human condition that we forget, or just plain ignore the goodness that is expressed to us as far it causing us to do the same for others or to live a life that says ‘thank you’ through our actions. We see that vividly in the life of the ungrateful servant in Matthew 18:23-35. Remember? This servant was in debt to his master so deep that he could not ever pay it off even in several lifetimes, however, he begged his master for mercy and his master totally forgave his debt. The heart break of this story however, is the servants’ response. After having been forgiven of literally millions of dollars, he went out and found someone who owed him literally a few dollars and demanded repayment and when he didn’t receive it he threw the man in jail. The Master’s kindness to the ungrateful servant should have caused him to have mercy and forgiveness towards any and everyone whom he came in contact with for the rest of his life. Instead he acted wickedly and scorned the mercy and kindness that had been shown to him.

Have you given any thought lately to all that God has done for you? Scripture is full of examples of the vastness of God’s goodness towards us. It tells of how we have been pardoned, forgiven, prayed for, thought of, sung over, saved, set free, liberated, purchased, given an eternal home, called a friend of God, etc. With all that and more, does His kindness lead us to live lives that say ‘thank you’?

As you think about the Lord today and this week, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you on a journey of all that God has done for you. As you are overwhelmed (which you will be) with the reality of what He has and continues to do on your behalf, ask Him to show you how to live a life of gratitude. A life that turns away from sin, a life that responds to others in that way that God responds to us, because it says, “Father, if you did all of this for me, than the least that I can do is to serve you with my life, with my “everythingness”!

May our worship today and this week cause us to bow before Him out of our deepest gratitude because of who He is and all He’s done for you and for others!