God’s dominant nature is love.  John once said, “God is love” (1 John 4:8).  Love, however, is not the only part of His nature.  In some ways, God is an unsparing God.

Too many people, who think they know God, ignore the unsparing side of His nature, and they do so to their own peril.  This is what makes some think they can get away with sin.  Paul warned of this when he wrote to the saints in Rome.

Romans 2:3-4 (ESV)
³  Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? ⁴  Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Some mistake the kindness and forbearance of God for toleration.  No, the goodness and longsuffering of God are not because He ignores sin, but it is meant to lead people to repentance.  Those who despise the love of God, demonstrated by his great kindness toward man, will ultimately experience the unsparing side of His nature.   There is a price to pay for spurning the will of God, and it will be experienced by every person who dies outside of His favor.  Paul refers to the unsparing aspect of God’s nature in Romans 11.

Romans 11:21 (ESV)
²¹  For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

The Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah.  As a result, the gospel was taken to the Gentiles (Acts 13:45-46).  The Gentiles, who never really pursued the righteousness of God, attained it, while the Jews stumbled (Romans 9:30-32).  Romans 11:21 is a warning to the Gentiles that they should not mistake their new-found favor with God as a sign that He loved them more than He did the Jews.  The only reason they had favor with God, and the Jews did not, was because they believed in Jesus while the Jews refused to do so.  If they ever stopped believing, they too, just like the natural branches (the Jews), would not be spared.

The theme of the book of Romans is justification by faith, and this warning to the Gentiles goes right along with that.  If you believe in Christ with obedient faith, you will be saved.  If you refuse to believe, God will not spare you.   If you doubt this, read the passage below.

2 Peter 2:4-9 (ESV)
⁴  For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; ⁵  if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; ⁶  if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly… ⁹  then the Lord knows how to… keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,     

Yes, God is a God of love, but He is also unsparing when it comes to unbelief and sin.  Take this truth seriously and do all you can to not get on the wrong side of God’s wrath.  Remember, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

As you wind down for the night, think about these things