Yesterday in church I was washed anew in the mercy of God’s love.  The church was worshipping and singing the scripture “Your kindness leads us to repentance” and after singing those words several times, I was undone.  Tears streamed down my eyes as I saw afresh who God is in contrast to my skewed view of the Father.  It’s His kindness that leads me to repentance.  His harsh rebuke? No.  A harsh rebuke? No.  A severe word “from the Lord”? No.  An abrasive sermon? No.  A group withdrawing themselves from others because of their ‘sin’? No.   It’s none of those things that leads to repentance, it’s only kindness.  While I do understand that there are times for harsh ‘words from the Lord’, they should be delivered only with love.  Nothing else matters.

As I was thinking of this I thought of the father/daughter/son relationship and pictured a child that wanted to please his/her father. I thought of the reasons that motivated this decision.  Was it fear or love?  While I completely agree that we are required to fear the Lord, I don’t think that our motivation in doing the right thing should be fear

I pictured me as a child in the lap of my Father.  Now do I want to please Him because I fear the consequences?  Because I fear His rage, His anger, His harsh rebuke, or the punishment of my actions? If that’s the case, do I really love Him, and am I serving Him out of love? If however, I’m so in love with Him, I don’t dare want to displease Him because I love Him so deeply, I would never want to hurt His heart, then I’m serving with correct motivation.  Are there real consequences of sin? Yes. But should they be my motivation? No.  I want to please my Father.  I want to love Him with my whole heart and never want to break His heart with my actions. I no longer wish to live in fear of consequences.  His kindness leads me to repentance; His mercy brings me to my knees. He is so incredibly good, what other response is there but to give Him my whole heart?

I read today a chapter in an amazing book called Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, by Francis Chan.  He discussed bringing God glory by craving relationship with Him, rather than serving Him out of obligation because I’m His slave.  He gives an illustration of running with a box of Twinkies under your arm, saying that it would be impossible to eat the Twinkies while running.  He says, “in the same way, you have to stop loving and pursuing Christ in order to sin.  When you are pursuing love, running toward Christ, you do not have opportunity to wonder, Am I doing this right? Or Did I serve enough this week?  When you are running toward Christ, you are freed up to serve, love, and give thanks without guilt, worry, or fear.  As long as you are running, you are safe.  But running is exhausting—if, that is, we are running from sin or guilt, out of fear.  (Or if we haven’t run in a while.) However, if we train ourselves to run toward our Refuge, toward Love, we are free—just as we are called to be.”

Chan, Francis. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God.  Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2008.