The mercy of God is breathtaking. It is one of the facets of Christianity that moves the Christian to humility toward God and toward those around him. When you take the time to assess God’s mercy in your life and in the lives of those you know, you cannot help but become quiet. Silence, most often, is a sign of contemplation and even sorrow. When you recognize that you would have been dead if God in His mercy had not chosen to draw you to Himself, you are left in utter silence. This silence is not one of sorrow per se, but one of gratitude and awareness. And the death of which I speak is not physical but spiritual. Spiritual death is worse than the former, because to be dead spiritually is to be separated from the Almighty God, the Maker of heaven and earth. Consider the fact that God has all power, is all knowing, and can do no wrong…and that He has taken the time to think about you, and stepped into your life, intercept what you were doing, and over time, draw your heart toward His. That is love.
The love that God has for you is incomprehensible because He had no reason to love you; you gave him no reason to, and moreover, you wanted nothing to do with Him. The only way you can love Him is because He has put that love into your heart to do so. God is love. Love originated with Him, comes from Him, and flows through Him to us. Because He loves us we can love others (1 John 4:7-8; Rom 5:8). God’s love and mercy dovetail to form grace. Grace is unearned favor. It is a gift that is given freely without any strings attached. It is purely altruistic. It is vast and worth shouting about. Since grace is so important in the life of every Christian, why is it that you and I are often reluctant to show it to others? Because we often forget what God has done for us. If we forget the good things that have come from His hand to ours, we will become cold and selfish. Do not allow that. Let us pray every day for God to give us hearts of grace, hearts of love, and hearts of mercy.
I see the mercy of God every day when I look around me. I recognized it this week when Charles and I decided to go walking. We started out walking but I soon suggested that we try to run instead. It had been months since I had the energy to sustain a long run. Gratitude flooded my heart and I immediately began to pray. We switched from running to walking and turned the rest of the walk into a prayer meeting. It occurred to me during my time of prayer, that it is absolutely foolish to hold on to a grudge of any sort. I came to that conclusion when I juxtaposed God’s mercy alongside my failures. God has been pleading with me to finish a certain project but it is very hard, and there are days when I have allowed other things to choke my time on this particular thing. This results in conviction and sometimes despair. I say, “God how am I supposed to do this with all the other things I have to do!” However, God has been merciful to me and keeps reminding me that He wants me to do this project that He is not going to change His mind. I thought about it and began to thank God. I then began to pray for some people who I do not pray for on a regular basis. I felt the power of the Holy Spirit like a heavy downpour of rain. No one could see the tears streaming down my face, because it was dark. I tasted God’s mercy on my lips once again, and nothing anyone could do at that moment could cause me to hate them. You and I have met unkindness face to face. We have been wronged many times over, and some of you have reason, and I mean good reason, to hate. But don’t do it. You see, as I embraced the ability to run but thought back to the days when health was a farfetched desire, I was overcome with thankfulness. When we think about all that God has done for us, the only thing that we can do, and should do, is to release anyone who might have wronged us. God’s grace and mercy are far too powerful to hold us captives of unforgiveness. We must embrace grace and give it. That is the only correct response. I have struggled with unforgiveness in my life, but more and more the Lord is allowing me to see Him, and so I am able to let go of past hurts that held me bound. This is a process, but we are so important to God, that He will take however long it takes, to make us like Himself. God wants us free, not bound. Christ’s death paid for our freedom, and we should not seek to hold others captive with our dogmatism that is often mere opinion and preference and biblically mandated. God is long suffering, patient, and merciful, and He wants us to grow into Christ-likeness. Be merciful to those whose growth you think is slow.
The mercy of God is like a long-sleeved, hooded overcoat that covers us all the way around. Consider that the overcoat has a hood that protects your head. The mercy of God protects us from the stinking thinking that we are prone toward. Our thoughts can be selfish, calculating, impure, and unjust. God’s mercy keeps us from pursuing the things that our mind lures us to concoct. The hood of the overcoat has a connecting cloth that covers our neck also. It is easy to become distracted and turn to the left when we should be looking forward. When we are tempted to turn back to the former sins we left behind, the mercy of God keeps us focused. When we lose focus and begin to stray to the left because what we see looks alluring, God’s mercy gently pulls us back onto the path and prods us in the right direction. When we veer to the right to pursue something that may in itself be good but may not be right for us at the time, God’s mercy nudges us back onto the road and moves us forward.
The back of the overcoat is like a brace or a strong support. When Satan tries to bring up your failures you can lean on God’s promises and rest in His grace. No matter how good you think you may have been, you had some darkness in your life. Yes, some people’s past is lurid, painful, and very sad, but God does not think of them any less than those whose past seems almost unblemished. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23), and all are dead in sin (Eph 2:1-3) without Christ’s resurrection power. So, when Satan tries to tell you that you are not worthy of being in the position that you are, do not believe him. When the Schemer tells you that people are not going to like you if they were to find out all the things you did in the past, do not listen. One young lady recently told me how an older Christian reacted when she shared something that she had done in the past and it broke my heart to see how snobbish some Christians are toward others. There are those in our churches who are quick to embrace newcomers and even quicker to discard them once they find out that the newcomer “has a past.” May that not be you. I have been attending church since I was a kid, and I have seen it over and over again, and I continue to see it. It is a sorry situation and it hurts my heart. Remember, God delights in using broken vessels. He doesn’t keep them broken. He simply takes what is broken, mends it, and begins to pour out of it. God uses people. He wants to use you, but Satan desires to accuse and misuse you. We must not allow ourselves to become a tool for him. He is our foe and we must resist him at every turn. God is able to give you the strength you need when you feel like giving up.
When we feel like giving up, we must trust God to guard our hearts. The front of the overcoat protects the chest area, which also houses your heart. God’s mercy covers your sinful heart and makes it pure. The heart is inherently deceitful and wicked (Jer 17:9), even for those pretty Christians who seem to have it all together. The heart, left to itself, will murder, tear down, and uproot what is planted—except for God’s quiet hand that quells it in its fury. When you are tempted to rush ahead of God and seize things that are not in His will for you; God’s mercy keeps your heart undivided. A divided heart is like half eaten cake presented to a couple at their wedding reception. That would be insulting to them and embarrassing to their guests. A divided heart is insulting to God (Jas 1:5-8). But God is greater than our heart (1 John 3:19-22). When we recognize what He has done for us and in us, we cannot serve Him half-heartedly. That is insipid to Him. He wants all of you and me.
Just as all of us belong to Him, He seeks to protect every part of our lives. The sleeves of the overcoat protect our arms. God’s mercy is stronger than our self-will. When you are tempted to pull your arms out of His, God hangs on to you. When you try to squirm like a worm out of His grasp, God’s mercy pulls your arms up under His like a lover does his beloved. God will not let go of you. Jesus says that he will lose none of his sheep (John 10:27-29). He will present all of us, intact, to the Father on that Day. There is a great Day coming when we shall see Him face to face, and we will bow before Him in utter obeisance and worship. I look forward to that day. But until then, let us encourage one another and hold each other’s hand. Let us pray for one another in fervency and sincerity. May God bless you and keep you. Thank you for praying for me.