Or 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?
—Romans 2:4
Have you ever stopped to wonder why God is so patient with you? Why the judgment we’ve earned hasn’t fallen? Why, after all the times we’ve ignored Him, He keeps sending kindness our way, another sunrise, another breath, another chance?
Paul asks a piercing question here. He warns against presuming on “the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience.” To presume means to take something for granted, to treat a gift as if it were owed to us. And many people do exactly that with God’s patience. They mistake His silence for approval. They figure that because judgment hasn’t come, it never will. They treat the delay as if God didn’t mean what He said.
But Paul tells us the real purpose behind God’s kindness, and it’s beautiful: “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” Every kindness God shows you is meant to soften you, to turn you, to draw you home. His patience is not weakness and it is not indifference. It is mercy holding the door open.
Think about that. The good things in your life are not random luck. They are God’s kindness, and they have a destination in mind. They are meant to lead you somewhere, to bring you to your knees in repentance and to the foot of the cross in faith.
But there’s a frightening flip side, and Paul names it in verse 5. He says that because of a hard and impenitent heart, a person can store up wrath for himself. Picture that, a man receiving kindness after kindness, and instead of being melted by it, growing harder, until the very mercy meant to save him becomes a record of grace despised.
That is the danger of presuming on grace. Every time God’s kindness comes, and you brush it aside, your heart grows a little harder, a little more set. The same sun that softens wax hardens clay. The same patience that should drive you to repentance, if resisted long enough, leaves you colder than before.
So, which is it doing in you right now? When you consider the kindness of God in your life, the people He’s placed around you, the warnings He’s sent, the gospel you keep hearing, is it softening you or hardening you?
Don’t presume on His patience. Don’t assume there will always be more time. The kindness is real, but it has a purpose, and it is calling your name today. Let it lead you where it has always meant to lead you: to repentance, and to the arms of a forgiving God.
GOD’S KINDNESS HAS A PURPOSE. IT IS MEANT TO LEAD YOU TO REPENTANCE. DON’T PRESUME ON HIS PATIENCE.
