Your kindness, Lord, leads us to repentance!

"Do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"

Often we forget that feelings of guilt and conviction and especially repentance are gifts that flow from the goodness and kindness of our Great God! We often think of repentance as the "hammer of God" coming down upon us...although at times it may feel like God is crushing us, remember that it is out of His goodness and kindness that He is working and bringing us to a place of repentance. Ultimately God is kind and good to bring us to "repent" so that we can be brought back to God. If God wanted to hurt His children with only the desire to 'hurt' us...then He would simply leave or forsake us because that would be the worst treatment He could give us. But, the fact that we are His children guarantees that He will never leave or forsake us. Instead, He is committed to working in us by His Spirit. God is a jealous God and He will most certainly continue to work in us to bring us back to Himself and to make us more like Himself. It may be that God has to chasten or discipline us (as His children) in order to awaken us and cause us to listen, obey and trust Him greater. And while we are on the issue of God's chastisement - listen to what Octavius Winslow has to say about God's chastening:

"Think, suffering child of God, of the many consoling, alleviating, and soothing circumstances connected with your chastisement. How much worse your position might be, how much more aggravated the nature of your sorrow, and how much heavier the stroke of the rod. Think of the disproportion of the chastisement to the sin, for 'know that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves.' Think of the many divine supports, the precious promises, the tenderness of God, the gentleness of Christ, the sympathy and affection dwelling in the hearts of the saints-and all this will demonstrate to you that the chastisement of the saints is the chastening of love."

Any suffering or chastisement that God's children receive never flows from the source of wrath or anger or condemnation. If we find ourselves underneath our Heavenly Father's chastisement or discipline, it is because of His great love for us. Again, listen to Winslow:

"Oh, could we always analyze the cup, how astonished should we be to find that in the bitterest draught that ever touched our lips the principal ingredient was love! That love saw the discipline needful, and love selected the chastisement sent, and love appointed the instrument by which it should come, and love arranged the circumstances by which it should take place, and love fixed the time when it should transpire, and love heard the sigh, and saw the tear, and marked the anguish, and never for one moment withdrew its beaming eye from the sufferer. Alas! How much is this truth overlooked by the disciplined believer!"