Everything we ever did wrong that we felt horrid for is forgiven, and that is the mercy of God at the Cross of Calvary that First Easter about 1,994 years ago. That mercy is the grace of God destined before even time began to raise us out of our spiritual poverty by the simple and single virtue of one man, the God-man, Jesus.
The grace of God is us
getting what we don’t deserve.
The mercy of God means
we did not get what we deserved.
Instead we got what God deserved,
while God got what we deserved.
In the simplest terms,
Jesus took our place.
In the simplest terms,
Jesus DID what we could not do.
In the simplest terms,
Jesus did what we NEEDED God to do.
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The mercy of God is a transaction achieved at Easter, one act at one time by one man, the only one qualified to acquit us ALL of all our wrong. This mercy of God is the forgiveness of God in God understanding the human condition. The mercy of God makes a way for humanity to be AS-IT-IS.
The mercy of God is activated the moment
we face what otherwise separates us from God.
The mercy of God is there, awaiting, dormant,
for the person contrite of heart
recognising their need of God.
God’s mercy toward a needy humankind is irrefutable when it is experienced by a forgiven believer. What I am saying is there is something tangibly real about the transaction we human beings make with God that makes the mercy of God palpable in human experience.
HUMANITY’S NEED OF MERCY
Humanity needs mercy, just as each of us needs it. As we receive it, we learn how important it is to give. Not only do others need it, but we also need to give it to others to re-experience God’s mercy to us.
As we extend God’s mercy to others,
God’s mercy is felt afresh in us.
There is a direct correlation.
Mercy is a thing that brings and begets life. We must experience it to feel human and to feel alive. We must also partake of it by extending it to others if we are to feel human and to feel alive.
Mercy at least in these terms
is the potent expression of love
that has practical meaning.
We may not comprehend love
until we have experienced mercy.
But as soon as mercy is experienced
the life of love unfolds in our lives.
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Not only is mercy vital for life, but the experience of mercy also activates something precious and powerful in our lives. It is precious because it vouchsafes that protective element in our lives that goes before others’ lives. Our mercy protects others as much as another’s mercy protects us. It is powerful because mercy has the capacity to save, and in being saved, we see the value in being saved, and we extend Jesus’ merciful power as He saves others. Our love is thereby done, in Jesus’ name!
Mercy is lovingly protective.
Mercy is lovingly powerful.
Mercy is fundamental in goodness,
a goodness rooted essentially in love.
Mercy is salvific and that nature of being saved,
leaves the saved transformed by its love.
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FORGIVENESS IS THE MERCY OF GOD
There is no more potent expression of mercy than of a perfect God having forgiven an imperfect humanity that condemns itself as ‘guilty’. It is such a familiar feeling.
The foremost sign that we are built in the image of God is that we have the conscience that God gives us—the knowledge of right from wrong. There are many people who may feel entitled to do as they please, to “do what is right in their own eyes,” (Proverbs 21:2, etc) but there are equally many who see with the heart of God—they live with the desire to be forgiven, because blessed are they as “their sin is ever before them” (Psalm 51:3).
The sign of the godly
is the contrition that seeks mercy.
The sign that salvation has come
is the expression of contrition.
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Forgiveness is the mercy of God.
Forgiveness is needed and desired.
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FORGIVING IS IMITATING THE MERCY OF GOD
Just as we are made in the image of God,
we are also called by God to imitate God.
That is, discipleship’s quest is to
FOLLOW Jesus, not just ‘believe’ in Him.
We are to follow His teaching
and to become like Him in character.
We are to emulate Jesus,
to carry out the mercy of Him who had no sin.
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A personal account from myself to close.
A little over two years ago—just in time as God always does—the Lord of glory taught me a beautiful but terrible lesson about mercy. HIS MERCY. Not that I went to prison, but I got away with something that could in my mind’s eye have been a serious crime—I almost killed someone on the road with my driving. A cyclist. It all happened in the blink of an eye. I was tired, confused, and distracted. But there would have been no excuses.
Suddenly for the first time in my life as a Christian—
for the first time in nearly 18 years of devoted service to God—
I SAW the mercy of the Lord.
The consequences of my sin shone before me.
Yet I stood there acquitted!
Though I still had some work to do in reflection, the hardness in my heart was shattered in an instant. The callouses were massaged soft. All through truth that I had not for a very long time contemplated. I had not seen it. That truth was a fresh revelation to me.
In begging for mercy, God impressed on my heart that, “If you deserve mercy, ALL deserve mercy. I did for ALL what I did for you.” This spoke to me. It spoke also to the persons I still held in contempt. And all that judgement and condemnation had to go!
God understood my heart,
but all the same I was in contempt of court.
I stood there before Him, naked with nothing, holding onto the last vestiges of the self that does not need God. I stood there exposed before His court—in utter contempt with the last remaining skerrick of defiance glaring for the entire court to witness.
It only takes one fraction of defiance,
and we are in opposition to God.
If we are to truly receive His mercy that forgives all we have done and will ever do, then we must be prepared to let it go and enter the new life.
The new life is emergent with freedom because we walk away from anything opposed to God. It is the life ALL of us need. We do not see it, however, until we see it, and then it is glorious.
Forgiveness is living the mercy of God in our own lives, as we bear our own crosses, just as Jesus bore ours from Gethsemane to Golgotha, once for ALL for all of time. Living this mercy of God is the greatest realisation of truth imaginable. It is the opportunity of a lifetime, but we only see it once we see it.
When we see that ALL deserve mercy,
we see how deserved we are of God’s mercy,
but until such time we cannot see that we deserve it.
This is because we hold others in contempt,
and therefore we hold ourselves in contempt.
What God is saying in essence is,
“you cannot have it both ways;
you have my mercy as you EXTEND my mercy.”
“Do you understand your need of my mercy?
If you do, you will let unforgiveness go;
you will give it to me so I can set you free.”
The truth of the matter is we need
God’s mercy to live the new life.
There are no two ways about it.
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