Being merciful

 

One good thing about aging is realizing that I cannot do many things that once were easy for me. Why is this good? I causes me to depend more and more on God’s help. Last week, a friend complained about age-related weakness and I said, “Think of it this way. Instead of being a weakness, you are becoming more mature in faith. It is the weak and helpless that God blesses the most.”

This popped out without forethought and came to mind this morning when I read this verse and the note I’d written under it: “Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful.” (Psalm 116:5) The note said, ‘Mercy is doing for others what they cannot do for themselves.’

Today’s devotional says showing mercy is a sign of being a Christian. This verse tells me that I’m to be like God in that I do for others what they cannot do for themselves:

So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:12–13)

These ideas are all connected. Aging gives me a sense of what others experience. I’m far more aware of the trials of life and the pitfalls, the sad times and the struggles. Age gives understanding into the human dilemma and into the battles we fight against sin. I’ve been through times of winning and times of losing. I know what it is like to be unable, to have much that I cannot do for myself. Showing mercy is more meaningful because I’ve needed it myself and God has shown it to me.

God’s “law of liberty” is the Gospel. It has set me free from the law of sin and death, something I could never do for myself either.

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:2–4)

God’s mercy to me is the reason and the foundation for me showing mercy to others. Even if other people do not realize that they cannot save themselves, I know the power and deceitfulness of sin. I didn’t understand it for many years, but now that I am older and God has shown me how helpless I am to fight sin, I have a greater distaste for it. I know what sin can do to a life and I don’t want others to remain it its clutches. Because of that knowledge and experience, showing mercy is an imperative. Sometimes it is the key to unlocking the door to release others from the prison of sin.

PRAY: Lord Jesus, there are people all around me in need of mercy. I realize that some of them are unaware of their need. Sin blinds the mind to the reality of it and to our helplessness to fight it. I also now see my own helplessness with greater appreciation for it. Without Your Spirit and Your wisdom, I’ve no idea what needs to be done to set people free from that law of sin and death. I just know that mercy is part of it, a large part. Otherwise, sinners face judgment without mercy. Today, grant me grace to be merciful. I’ve no idea what the day may bring, but without Your mercy and grace, I will be helpless to deal with any of it. Bless me so I can bless others.

PONDER: Read Luke 10:25-37. What does it tell me about mercy? What can interfere with being merciful?

 

 

Blessed are the merciful . . .

In some cultures, mercy is considered a weakness. Showing compassion, particularly toward those who wrong you is considered a character flaw, even though this is commanded by God because He is merciful. This is seen in the fact that He does not treat us as we deserve. The Bible is clear, “All sin and all fall short of the glory of God.” We do not live as we were created to live. We choose our own way rather than obedience to our Creator. If He were not MERCIFUL, we would not live or even draw another breath.

Christians often describe ‘mercy’ from our perspective as getting what we do not deserve. From God’s perspective, mercy is compassion, a desire to be gracious, lenient and forgiving especially towards those who have offended Him. It is the character of God that sent Jesus to die for our sin rather than punish us as we deserve.

In the OT, several verses describe how God is merciful . . .

Psalm 145:8–9. The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.

Exodus 34:6–7. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Spurning His mercy is dangerous. It invites a positive response.

Deuteronomy 4:30–31. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

2 Samuel 22:26–28. “With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you deal purely, and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous. You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down. Psalm 18:25

God wants me to be like Him in this quality of mercy. Jesus said in Luke 6:36, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

And according to Hebrews 8:10–12, God’s mercy toward me makes it possible for me to be merciful toward others:

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

James 5:11 points to Job whose faith was deeply tested by with unrelenting difficulties. He survived because he knew that God was not punishing him. This man knew the mercy of God: “Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. I can be more judgmental than merciful. Like John and James, I want to call fire down from heaven when I see others reject Jesus, but God does not do this. I need to be more like David and focus on my need and rely on God’s supply of grace and mercy:

Psalm 86:15–16. “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant, and save the (daughter) of your maidservant.”

I also need to be more like the publican who did not compare himself favorable over others but called out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”