Remain in His Kindness (or else!)

Think about God's kindness and His severity.

When we think about God we must remember that He is more than meets the eye, and more than meets our expectations.  We must not define or take God the way we want to otherwise we do not take God at all. 

If someone loves the part about me that is funny but not the part about me that likes to talk about deep matters then they do not love me.  They love something about me that serves their fancy, but they do not love me, and if they said they did I would find that absurd since I am clearly being divided up for their preferences.  

They may enjoy parts about me more than others, but to love me means to love all of me or none of me.  You cannot love half a person or even 99% of a person because to love someone is to take all of them as a whole person.  Love is not about what you want to pick and choose, it's about a complete takeover.  A full laying down of one's own life for the sake of the other--that is love. 

So when we say that we love God we must be careful that we are not taking parts about God that we like and leaving out others and then declaring that as love.  Consider God's kindness and severity.  God is amazing, yes, the gospel is emotionally heart-wrenching when we consider His grace in the midst of our sins, but we must not become arrogant for what we were given.  We must be afraid. 

By faith we were gifted this new life, it was free and it took ALL our guilt and shame away, and so in the same way by lack of faith we can lose it.  We must remember to remain in His kindness.  For God is not just kind, but He is also severe.  Free means free, and if you decide by your own fancy that you want to somehow earn what God said is free you will find yourself facing His severity.  

God brought you in and He can also take you out.  Likewise, God has cut off those who did not believe, but if they come to believe by faith He can bring them back in because He alone has the power to do so.  He brought you in by faith, and He is serious about what He said when He said "It is finished."  To live in such a way to forget that truth is to put yourself in a place of defying God's kindness.  To defy God in even the smallest way is to meet with His severity.  There are consequences to our knowing God.  We either love Him or we do not.  

“True enough; 

they were broken off by unbelief, 

but you stand by faith. 

Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. 

For if God did not spare the natural branches, 

He will not spare you either. 

Therefore, consider 

God’s kindness and severity: 

severity toward those who have fallen 

but God’s kindness toward you — 

if you remain in His kindness. 

Otherwise you too will be cut off. 

And even they, 

if they do not remain in unbelief, 

will be grafted in, 

because God has the power 

to graft them in again.”

Romans 11:20-23

What have we been given by faith?  Where do we stand now?  Let us remain standing in His kindness with fear in our hearts that He has brought us in with nothing on our part to make us worthy, and He is serious about that.  To follow Jesus is to realize that we are no longer searching for our worth or value.  We have it in full because by faith we put on Christ--the most worthy to be praised!  

“Oh, the depth of the riches 

both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! 

How unsearchable His judgments 

and untraceable His ways! 

For who has known the mind of the Lord? 

Or who has been His counselor? 

Or who has ever first given to Him, 

and has to be repaid? 

For from Him and through Him 

and to Him are all things. 

To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

Romans 11:33-36

Consider God's kindness and severity. 

Kindness towards us who have been brought into Christ as sons and daughters by God based on nothing from us but childlike faith, but severity for those whom He cut off because of unbelief.  We can be cut off too if we lose sight of God's kindness!  And those that have been cut off can be brought back in when they accept God's kindness in full.  

So take Him all or take none of Him at all. 

It is finished because Jesus has cleansed us through and through.  The temptation is to begin trying to pay off what the blood fully accomplished.  Rather, remain in God's kindness with the freedom to will and to work for His glory, not for your own worth.  

There's nothing you did to deserve what you have been given, and there's nothing you can do to earn what you have been given!  So just stop.  If you're trying hard and feeling deflated then you either don't understand what you have been given and need to ask God to reveal the joy of salvation to you or you're full of pride that God's kindness takes away from you feeling good about yourself.  

Remain in His kindness.  By faith you were brought in, and by lack of faith you can be taken out!  Faith is believing what we do not see.  I don't see that I'm a good person all of the time, but I have faith that I am because Jesus' blood is true.   

So I'm free by faith alone.  

I can't believe it sometimes, but the moment I feel that starting to happen I recall God's severity and I remain in His kindness! 

Jmegrey