Called To Mercy

 Luke 6:36


36 Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.


In yesterday’s devotion, we gave the definition of mercy and grace and outlined how the two are different.  Mercy is when God doesn’t give us what we deserve.  That is a very sobering statement in the light of our own salvation.  What did we deserve?  Let’s look at two different verses.


Romans 3:23

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,


Romans 6:23

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.


Based on these two verses, we realize what we all deserve and it’s very sobering.  We all deserve death.  We have all sinned.  There is not one person that is innocent, but we are all guilty and the penalty is death.  However, because we serve a merciful God, God gave us a way out.  He gave us the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ.  We deserve death, but God didn’t give us death.  We serve a merciful God and stated in Luke, we are commanded to be merciful just as He is merciful.


We are commanded to not give what others deserve.  Living a merciful life is hard.  At times, we believe that justice needs to be done and our definition can be warped.  We need to understand and accept that God is the ultimate Judge.  As Christians, justice and vengeance should go directly to the Lord.


Romans 12:19

19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.


God promises to take care of us and He always will.  If we are wronged in our lives, we are called to be merciful.  We need to show mercy unto others and trust that God is going to work.  We don’t know how exactly He will work.  Sometimes we want and crave bad things to happen to people who have done bad things to us.  However, sometimes, God’s plan is the opposite.  Sometimes God uses those times to bring those who wrong us back to Him.  In surprise, relationships are sometimes restored when we could have destroyed them.  Sometimes we allow our emotions to get in our way when we don’t exercise mercy and because of that, a relationship that could possibly be saved ends up becoming destroyed.


We need to be merciful and allow God to work in the situations of our life.


Ephesians 2:4 says that God is rich in mercy.  If God asks us to be merciful because He is merciful, then we need to be rich in mercy as well.  It’s not something that we express on occasion times, it’s something that we express everyday of our life.


We are called to live a life of mercy and grace.  Who can you be merciful to today?  Has someone wronged you?  Have you craved for “justice” but it’s only the justice that you feel that is in your own thinking?  Pray for a merciful heart and let mercy reign in your life.

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