The Gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales. -John Stott
I started this blog as an experiment in non-fiction Christian inspirational writing, but it’s also a chronicle of my journey for a deeper understanding of God’s Word. I lean on the Spirit to guide me as I study the scriptures, and invite my readers to walk with me, and share what I discovered.
I think of this fall time of year as the “mercy season.” It’s my favorite time of year as I observe many changes happening in nature.
The trees exhibit beautiful colors. The yellows, oranges, and reds painting the leaves were there all along, but the green pigments, called chlorophyll, overshadow them, until the diminishing light of fall causes the trees to make less green. But not to worry, the sugars produced by the chlorophyll remain safety stored in the roots of the tree for food when the branches turn bare.
Also, the ants go underground as a shield against the cold, where they have gathered food for the winter. Where is the instruction manual for that? Birds fly south in search of food, and somehow, they know where to go, sometimes to places thousands of miles away!
All these things are examples of God’s mercy and provision for their needs. He owes His creation nothing, but He faithfully cares for it through every season. He remains sovereign over all.
“You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it” (Psalm 65:9, NIV.)
I see many blessing for which I need to thank God, in this time when we celebrate thanksgiving.
I recently witnessed a couple of examples of mercy, or rather, the lack of it. My wife, Candace, and I were walking out of a store, and a young man asked us if we’d be willing to sign a petition. During our conversation, he told me he was from the east coast. I asked him about the recent hurricane, and he described “million-dollar homes” destroyed on the barrier islands off the Florida coast, and he offered “they got what they deserved because they are rich.”
This young man’s opinion did not offer mercy. I didn’t take the opportunity to share a Biblical perspective about who deserves mercy, and so perhaps, I was not merciful to him. I took a pass on his spiritual needs, rather than pity him.
The late Jerry Bridges, who was an evangelical Christian author, speaker, and staff member of the Navigators, related a story about mercy. He wrote, “Remember my reaction to the homeless men in the library. I was prideful. How dare these men invade our nice, middle-class space? Humility would have genuinely said, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ Humility would have thought, Is there anything I can do to help these men? Humility would have recognized that it is the Lord Who makes some poor and some rich, (or, in our case, middle-class.) It is the Lord Who brings low and Who exalts (I Samuel 2:7). If I am any better off financially or socially than these homeless men, it is all due to the grace of God” (The Blessings of Humility, p. 57, c. 2016.)
“He makes some people poor and others rich; He humbles some and makes others great” (I Samuel 2:7, GNT.)
No one deserves mercy. Timothy Keller said, “Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer. If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn’t mercy.”
Jesus said, “Happy are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them!” (Matthew 5:7, GNT.)
I believe the concept of mercy is rooted in the first Beatitude that preceded Matthew 5:7: Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3.) When I realize my sinful emptiness before God and yearn to be filled with His righteousness through Jesus Christ, His forgiveness is His mercy to me. So, every happiness, joy, ability, virtue, and event good or bad, comes from His mercy to me. The mercy I show to others is born out of the mercy shown to me by a Holy God.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Peter 1:3, NASB.)
The Pharisees complained when Matthew, the tax collector, invited Jesus to eat with him. They asked why He ate with such despised scum. Jesus told them He came for sinners.
Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices. ’For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners” (Matthew 9:13, NLT.)
The Pharisees had reduced their interaction with God to an empty practice of rituals and rules. This isn’t what God wants from those who worship Him. He wants a real relationship in our hearts.
“Woe to you, [self-righteous] scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you give a tenth (tithe) of your mint and dill and cumin [focusing on minor matters] and have neglected the weightier [more important moral and spiritual] provisions of the Law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the [primary] things you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You [spiritually] blind guides, who strain out a gnat [consuming yourselves with miniscule matters] and swallow a camel [ignoring and violating God’s precepts]!” (Matthew 23:23-24, AMP.)
Mercy required forgiveness, and acts as the doorway to forgiveness. But notice in the scripture above, Jesus lumps justice, mercy and faithfulness together. At first glance, mercy seems the opposite of justice: justice equals an offender gets the punishment he deserves, while mercy means he receives undeserved release from punishment.
But when I remember God has forgiven me, as a gift, I also recall the way He did so: by the sacrifice of His Son on the cross, to pay the price, and satisfy His justice against my sins, and all who call on the name of Jesus to save them. His offers mercy and grace not despite His justice, but because of it, and showed us that His justice was satisfied and not violated through His Son.
“and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (I Thessalonians 1:10, ESV.)
God has given us His template to follow.
“For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12, ESV.)
I need to feel compassion for others. Compassion opens the way to act mercifully, and mercy opens the way to forgive. These heart changes for me don’t happen easily, but over time, and by the work of the Spirit in my heart.
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26, ESV.)
Jerry Bridges puts it this way, “But the real expression of humility in action comes in forgiving others when they have sinned against us in some way . . . It means we extend mercy when we have received mercy from God (see Matthew 18:33.) Again, we see that merciful people are those who are poor in spirit, recognizing that we are not better (and perhaps even worse) than those who sin against us” (The Blessing of Humility, p. 57, c. 2016.)
Matthew 18:21-35, recounts Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant, who was forgiven much by his master, but then refused to forgive a smaller debt of another and had him put in prison. When the master found out about this, he put the unmerciful servant in prison.
“And Jesus concluded, ‘That is how my Father in heaven will treat every one of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart’” (Matthew 18:35, GNT.)
This tells me forgiveness and mercy are not options. God’s mercy to me came at a price: the precious blood of my Savior. Mercy and forgiveness of those who have hurt me, can be difficult, if not impossible, in my own strength, but they are basic to living in Christ, and the Spirit helps me.
Selah