123 MERCY
123 MERCY
Mic 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
My mind went in at least three directions when I started this topic. The first was; that I had to ask God for forgiveness before I obtained mercy from Him. [I know, I know; His word says that He is merciful to the wicked and that is right. He does not send them to hell right away. He allows them to continue until their final judgment hoping that they will have a change of heart; giving them breathe, food and everyday necessities because He knows that the final judgment and hell will be irreversible.]
The thing is, I could not be right, find love, peace and happiness and have Jesus as my friend without acknowledging my sin and repenting- [Asking God for forgiveness and a change of heart.]
The second thing was the fact that mercy, like repentance, is an ongoing process. It does not stop with a one-time event. To sin after repentance and pass it off as only being human is to continue in your sin. God is looking for us to love Him enough to say “opps, sorry” when we realize what we have done. It is a growing and maturing of our faith that pleases Him not excuses and cold-hearted ignorance. God looks on our hearts and knows when we are sincere and when we are not. No one is fooling God.
The third thing was that God does not look at ‘mercy’ the same as we do; He understands all things and knows the meaning behind every thought, action and event in our life and in the world. We look at wealth and prosperity as being gifts from God to an obedient person but God’s word says that sometimes they are given to a person because they have no reward in heaven so these gifts are all that they are going to get from Him.
We also look at death as a sad thing to happen to someone but death is going to happen to us all; the death of this body and a going on to the next life is a natural process like birth. Once a baby is conceived, it HAS to come out, one way or another. Once someone is conceived, they have to die, one way or another. [I know. There were two but don’t go there.]
Sometimes death is a good thing; God’s word says - Isa 57:1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
Because ones future will be so horrible, God takes them from it in death.
The last thing is that because we have received mercy from God, He expects us to extend mercy to everyone else. This does not mean that we should let everyone off with their actions; is it mercy to let someone go on in their sin without telling them of the judgment of God to come? Or to let someone continue their evil and aggressive habits against other innocent victims with out some resistance to try and stop them?
If you love someone, you will not extend mercy to them with out them showing some form of deserving it. This teaches them that there is no judgment for their actions because, as Christians, we are supposed to know right from wrong and, if we allow them to be wrong, they will think that they are alright and not seek a change for their lives. Mercy fears God and His judgment for yourself and then for those around you because love rightly judges who to extend mercy to and who not to extend mercy to and when to extend mercy and when not to.
God is bound by His word to keep it and so are His people and mercy has to be controlled by the rest of God’s word to be complete as a whole.
