{"id":54,"date":"2007-10-03T06:00:48","date_gmt":"2007-10-03T13:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/dailyevotional\/archives\/54"},"modified":"2007-10-03T15:26:38","modified_gmt":"2007-10-03T22:26:38","slug":"kindness-or-sternness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/kindness-or-sternness\/","title":{"rendered":"“KINDNESS OR STERNNESS?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romans 11:21-22<\/strong><\/p>\n

“For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in His kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are two words I would like to consider for today; “KINDNESS and “STERNNESS.” It is hard to understand how anyone would choose God’s sternness rather than His kindness. There is a huge “THEREFORE” in this passage that must be considered..<\/p>\n

As I have mentioned in the past, anytime you read a passage of Scripture and see a “therefore”, you should ask yourself; “What is the “therefore” there for?” It means that something has to be considered in order to fully understand the significance of what is being said since it has an effect on what you are reading. I hope that makes sense.<\/p>\n

In this instance, the “therefore” relates to the unbelief of the Jews who were [so] entrenched in traditions and manmade structures of spirituality, that they would not accept the reality of God in their lives. As a result and as a consequence, they were cut off. That is an example of God’s sternness.<\/p>\n

I am going to try to use an illustration which I hope applies. Back in 1963, I was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the United States Air Force. I had every intention of making the Air Force a career and remaining in until retirement. There was one problem—I was a Reserve Officer and did not have flying status. There was a price to be paid later on. There would be a “therefore” later in my career!<\/p>\n

Promotions came along as scheduled; from 2nd Lt., to 1st Lt, to Captain. The promotion from Captain to Major, basically required being designated a Regular Officer. Ninety-eight percent of all reserve Captains failed to receive a promotion to Major and were thus forced to leave the service. That was a “therefore” that took years to occur, but the result was the end of a career.<\/p>\n

Consequences in life generally do not just happen. They are the result of actions we take which do not seem critical at the time, but—Oh!—the price that comes later on! Failure to have the Lord Jesus in our heart and walk closely to Him will result in our experiencing God’s sternness. We will be “cut off!”<\/em><\/p>\n

The other word for today is “kindness.” We live in such a dog-eat-dog world, that the very concept of kindness is foreign to us. The dictionary describes kindness as a kind of good deed or favor, a state or quality of being kind. Even as believers we will experience the agony of God’s sternness if we do not obey Him.<\/p>\n

God has been so kind to us. By His grace and mercy, He has overlooked the faults and failures of our life, and has demonstrated a gentleness. Do we deserve it? No way! Do we need it? Yes way! (I don’t think that will pass the grammatical test, but I hope you understand).<\/p>\n

But here again, kindness is conditional. We receive God’s kindness as we continue in His kindness. That is, if we stay close to Him in thought, word and deed. May that be so in our lives!<\/p>\n

Blessings dear hearts. Walk with God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing.<\/p>\n

– –\u00a0– Pastor Cecil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 11:21-22 “For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in His kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.” There are two words I would like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-e-votionals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}