He Raises Believers

May 25

God is in the grace-giving business. Just as we tend to be lenient with our children when they are young and in need of loving guidance and instruction regarding the rules of the house, the rules of the school, and the rules of life, so the Lord of all mercy is lenient to us when we fail Him.

Yet, there is a growth process that He anticipates in believers, just as we expect our ten-year old to behave in an improved fashion over our two-year old. We expect that maturity will come in its appropriate time. If our twenty-year old college student acts as he did at age ten, we will wonder how we failed ‘Child-Rearing 101’ so abysmally.

Essentially, we apply the same philosophy to raising our children as the Lord applies as He raises believers from one level of faith to the next. He knows we won’t be completely like Him until we get to heaven, but He doesn’t excuse us if we continue in the same foibles over and over.

I Timothy 1:13, 14 puts it like this, “Since it was out of ignorance that I acted in unbelief, I received mercy and the grace of our Lord overflowed to me.” When we’re facing a new level of faith and obedience, He will be much more inclined to give us some slack than in the areas where we’ve willfully refused to mature.