A soldier was trying to keep warm in his army tent on a frigid winter night. He had piled his clothes and blankets on top of him but his feet stuck out beyond the covers. “Why don’t you pull in your feet?” the sergeant asked. “Oh, no,” the chattering rookie replied, “if I’d pull them cold things in here, I would freeze to death!” The church must be warm at heart if we are to thaw out our fringe members.
Author: Vance Havner
Devotion of the Day
Fair-Weather Repentance
The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.
Romans 2:4
We ought not wait for the hour of trial, the time of chastening to set our house in order, to take stock of ourselves, to have our commission renewed. God’s goodness not His scourging alone, is meant to lead us to repentance. The day of blessing should bring us to the mourner’s bench, and then we might avert the painful discipline. If we judged ourselves in the sunshine we might not be judged in the shadow.
Thatch your roof in dry weather. Do not wait until the storm breaks. While you have health and loved ones and prosperity, let the Great Physician give you a check up. Do not wait until you are grievously smitten.
Though most of us come to conversion and confession and cleansing in the house of desperation, it need not be so. God’s goodness ought to melt our hearts and break us down and shame our lack of faith and our love grown cold.
Fair-weather repentance might save us many a cloudy day.