Taking God For Granted

Taking God For Granted

"Do you take lightly the riches of God?" Paul asks us this question in Romans 2:4. He’s talking about the goodness of God, His tolerance and His patience. What he's getting at is that there are people who know all about the grace of God who feel that because God has saved them from their sin, now they can do whatever they want.

That is NOT okay with God. What they are saying, in effect, is this, "We don't have anything to worry about, now. God is not going to come down on us. We are the chosen people of God so He won’t treat us like the rest of the world."

It’s dangerous to neglect the severity of sin. God takes it seriously. He doesn’t turn His head nor ignore it. Romans 2:4 is there to tell us that the goodness, tolerance and patience of God should be leading us to repentance, not to liberty. We should be coming before God as a response to His goodness, humbling ourselves, confessing our sins and turning away from them.

Repentance means to turn back from something. Picture yourself driving down the road in the wrong direction. When you realize you're going the wrong way you don't keep on driving. You get off that road, turn around and head in the right direction.

That’s what repentance is all about. When we realize that we have a sin problem in our life that is leading us away from God, we have to stop that sin, turn around and head back towards Him. God wants us to desire what He desires.

Galatians 5:16-17

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another...”

So, if we walk according to the Spirit, we will desire the things that God desires. We do that by being prayerful, by reading the Word and by surrounding ourselves with other Christians. If we do this we will learn to honor God in all that we do.