The Merciful Thing To Do
Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. ~ Matthew 9:13
“Mom, I have no mercy.” My daughter was calling from college, about three weeks into her first semester as a Resident Assistant in her dorm.
Some girls had gotten homesick and were quite dramatic in their misery away from home. She just wanted to tell them to “get over it!” Usually, my daughter had mercy on young women who were physically or emotionally injured or even miserable over some perceived slight. What she was not “merciful” about with these young women was the drama.
Shortly after this, she was home for a visit. While shopping, we found a T-shirt that said, “Save the Drama,” on the front and, “For Your Mama,” on the back. She had enough mercy not to buy it.
“Mercy” is a precious, undeserved, gift that God gives His people. He extends it to us in our salvation by forgiving our sin.
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
~ Titus 3:4-5
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[/pullquote]We are reminded of His mercy again in Roman 5:8, but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. His mercy for us is because of His great love for us (even in our sin), not because we are so special that we draw His attention.So, we do not earn salvation, but receive it from God in His mercy. Because of this, God has the expectation that we will show mercy to others. This is why the realization that she was lacking in mercy was so upsetting to my daughter. In the Matthew 18:33 parable about forgiveness, Jesus asks if a man should not have shown mercy to another as it had been shown to him.
There is mercy in the act of forgiving another person who has wronged us in some way, because it demonstrates what God has done for us. There is also mercy in showing kindness and patience with someone who is in emotional or physical pain. There is even mercy in being patient and truthful with an overly dramatic young woman.
Who of us does not have someone to forgive, someone in emotional pain, physical pain, or someone who just is a pain? Christ has set an example for how to treat each one. We may not be able to heal them as He did, but, will we be willing to demonstrate His mercy by being patient and kind to them, forgiving them as He has forgiven us?
I love serving Jesus Christ as one who “feeds His sheep”. It is my desire to teach God’s Word diligently, with reverence and awe for the Source of the truths I teach, and with an engaging, and sometimes witty, delivery so that the hearers will not just listen but do what it says.
- For Our Good - February 12, 2020
- Future Benefits - January 8, 2020
- Attention Getting Behavior - October 16, 2019
“…but, will we be willing to demonstrate His mercy by being patient and kind to them…” Mercy comes in so many forms and faces, doesn’t it? Thanks for the encouragement to seek it out of our those hardened parts of our hearts! (And Welcome to Grace and Such!)
The phrase on that t-shirt has been muttered more than once in this house. Sadly, I’m low on the mercy scale when it comes to histrionics. But Jesus.