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Enjoy Life, Enjoy God


Dale Patterson

A PURPOSE IN MERCY AND GRACE

March 11, 2011

 The Psalmist tells the fantastic story how time and again God cares and provides for his people; yet, we read the repeated sorrow: "In spite of all this, they kept on sinning, in spite of his wonder, they did not believe." (Psalm 78:32)

The rest of the people who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood--idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.
- Revelation 9:20,21 TNIV

Surely there is a purpose is God's mercy and grace. John's vision continues with a dreadful series of plagues and terror, and he ends this part of the spectacle with the notion, they "still did not repent." Whether it's in this Revelation or throughout the biblical story, God's care and concern is toward an end: repentance.

You know, we can't control what goes on around us, and certainly we cannot control the content of John's vision of terror and hope. We can only control our own self. Let it never be said of us, and they "still did not repent."

Joyfully,

Dale Patterson