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I thank
Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me
faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a
blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown
mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief…I found mercy,
so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His
perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for
eternal life.
-1 Timothy 1:12-16
J.
Vernon McGee once wrote, “God’s mercy is the originating cause of
man’s salvation.” What a statement! Of all the attributes of God,
McGee concluded that it was His mercy that motivated God to provide
salvation for mankind. The apostle Paul himself declared that “it does
not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on
God who has mercy” (Romans 9:16).
No
one earns or is deserving of the mercy of God. In fact, mercy cannot be
mercy if it is doled out based upon the achievements of its recipient.
Mercy is given because it is something that the Giver desires to do in
spite of the failures of the recipient. No man knew that more than Paul:
“God pitied
Paul, to be sure as we might pity one who destroys himself by his
obstinacy. Indeed, the very word, ‘mercy’, implies guilt. It is
said that when a mother pleaded with Napoleon for mercy for her
condemned son, Napoleon replied, ‘He does not deserve mercy,’
whereupon the woman responded, ‘But sire, would it be mercy if he
deserved it?"
-Pastoral Epistles, C.R. Stam
Ambrose
Bierce defines mercy as “an attribute beloved of detected
offenders.”
If that is the case then all men should love the mercy of God because
all men are offenders and all have been detected. There is none
righteous, none who does good, none who seeks for God, all have gone
astray, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, all are
dead in trespasses and sins, and so all men are in desperate need of the
mercy of God. The good news of the gospel is that whether we realize it,
believe it, appreciate it, or not, we have already received mercy from
Him through the cross of Jesus Christ.
So
what is mercy? Mercy is compassion toward the afflicted, the helpless,
and those who are in misery by the one who has power over them. The one
who is merciful must by definition have the authority and ability to
exercise punishment or harm to those to whom he is merciful. For
example, a court has the authority to convict and pronounce sentence
upon a guilty criminal. He would have no say in the matter other than to
“throw himself upon the mercy of the court.” If, however, the court
were to declare the obviously guilty man innocent and spare him his just
punishment, this man would have been granted mercy.
Friends,
we too have been shown great mercy in that “while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Our God is not only the author and
source of mercy, but the initiator of it as well. He did not wait for us
to clean up our act. He died for us when we still His enemies! Yes, He
is “rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us”
(Ephesians 2:4). The one and only “God, who gives life to the dead and
calls into being that which does not exist” (Romans 4:17), has
taken those who were dead, helpless, and hopeless and given us life in
Christ. Just like the
apostle Paul, you and I have also “found” mercy, not because we went
looking for it, but because He has demonstrated and revealed it to us in
His Son!
Grace and peace to
you always!
John
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