"Why does God give us second chances?" Plus, I'm adding the following questions...What is one word you could use to sum up the idea of second chances? Why do we need to give second chances? How is God a servant by giving us a second chance? What are some passages from scripture to back up your answers?
Well, my first thought was to dig deeper into the idea of second chances. What are they really? And as I reflected on them more, I realized that I could sum them up with the word forgiveness. In fact, you could probably use a number of words such as grace and love as well, but when I get a second chance from God, He has essentially forgiven me, and I am given another opportunity to trust Him and live in obedience to Him.
Why does He do this? (Read these passages by clicking on the verses.)
-2 Peter 3:9
-Joel 2:12-13
Why should we give second chances (forgiveness) to others?
-Colossians 3:13
-Mark 11:25
-Luke 17:4
Jesus forgave, and we need to do what Jesus did. Jesus commanded us to forgive. Jesus reminds us that if we do not forgive others, we will not be forgiven. God loves us and is patient with us. So, also we ought to love one another and be patient with one another.
And when we receive second chances from God, it is so that we can repent and turn back to him, not so that we can abuse His grace and continue in sin. Godly sorrow over your sin leads to repentance.
The parable from Matthew 18:21-35 speaks strongly on all of this, and I very much encourage you to read it and meditate on it.
God serves us by being patient with us. We as followers of Christ must do the same.
I guess the word I would choose is “compassion”. In the Hebrew language, it means “to handle lovingly”.
ReplyDeleteThe scripture that I would choose to bring this thought home comes from Psalm 103:13, 14 - “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those that fear Him; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.”
When we enter into this world, we are not born mature. A loving parent must be very patient and give countless “second chances” to their children as they go through the maturing process.
When we are “born-again”, we are not automatically spiritually mature. We have entered into a learning process in which our heavenly Father shows great patience and gives us countless second-chances as we move toward maturity. Just as the “natural man” matures more quickly by learning from painful mistakes, so the “spiritual man” is to mature by learning through painful mistakes. As a parent of two children of my own, I would much rather that they learned through trusting in my life-experiences and obeying me, but there were times when they decided that they could beat the odds and ended up doing something stupid. As a loving parent, it hurt me when they chose not to believe me in those situations, but I never disowned them or stopped loving them - just as my parents didn’t with me when I did something stupid.
Jesus tells us in Luke 11:13, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.”
If my heavenly Father never gave me a second chance, I would never achieve any level of spiritual maturity … and He could not declare Himself to be a God of compassion. But He is! He demonstrated His love for me by revealing what He was willing to pay in order for me to become His child - while I was yet a sinner. He doesn’t demand that I “be good, or I won’t love you anymore.” Instead, He gently says, “I have showed you My love and I desire that you respond properly by trusting that I have your best interests at heart.” He doesn’t demand perfection from us, “He remembers that we are dust”. But He greatly desires that we spiritually mature by trusting Him, obeying Him because we do trust Him, and by learning through our pain when He gives us those countless “second chances” simply because He loves us more deeply than we can possibly know.
well i think God gives us second chances because he has grace, and love, and compassion, and mercy, and cares for each and everyone of us, so he hates to see us fail or fall. God gives us second chances so we can succeed in what we are trying to accomplish.
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