God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. (Matthew 5:7, NLT)
You and I are completely undeserving of the great mercy our Lord has shown us. At times in our lives, we have flagrantly ignored His ways and acted like spoiled, arrogant, selfish adolescents … charting our own course, demanding our rights even as we fell into sin along the pathways we were choosing. Only later do we realize, there was nothing of value from these occasions of illusionary self-centered excursions into sin.
To redeem the messes, we have made of things and of the abuse of the freedom we have in our will; we are in great need of great mercy. We are not in need of mercy in token amounts like finding a coin on the street but in need of a great amount of mercy as in an unexpected windfall of cash from a wealthy relative. In fact we are in need of even more than an unexpected windfall of mercy. Most of the time our sin has caused great damage to ourselves and to others, left lingering consequences and massive amounts of regret in our lives. We need the compassionate love and forgiveness for our sins that can be found only in the mercy of God. Only the mercy of God can open the door for the grace of God to rebuild, repay and redeem our debt to those who were and are damaged by our sin.
We are given a new life by the mercy of God. We are utterly hopeless in our sin without the mercy of God. Praise be to God, for it is He who sees us in our hopelessness and loving redeems us from the penalty of our sin that we so rightly deserve (Romans 5:8). When we are given God’s mercy through Jesus Christ, we have life in His name. How can we not give mercy, when we only have new life by God’s mercy?
We will stand condemned when we withhold mercy from others (Matthew 18:21-35). When we withhold mercy from others, we are shutting off the work of Holy Spirit in showing mercy to others. The mercy we would give in our human capacities is quite limited but the mercy that flows through us by the power of the Holy Spirit is vast in its capacity. Our failure to show mercy does not reflect the God of mercy who redeemed us but only our own self-centered ungrateful and unmerciful heart. Surrender your heart to the mercy that has saved you and let His mercy and grace change you. You can only be blessed by God, when you are truly merciful to others!
Suggested Reading … Matthew 18
