This week, Michael writes: When you ask a person a question, they’ll ask two questions in response: What will it cost me? What will I get out of it? All decisions in life are a risk/reward tradeoff. Life is a series of decisions. In the decisions of life, the question is, what’s it worth? The real question is not about the cost. Instead, it’s about value ... What is it that you value most?
Many people think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. The devil will tempt the gullible to believe that their salvation in Christ is insufficient ... that they need more of what the world has to offer. The beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12 are the keys to the kingdom of the God. To enter into the presence of the Lord, we must approach His throne of grace with a spirit of humility, a spirit that is destitute of myself so that He can fill me. When we’re hungry and thirsty for His righteousness, then Jesus said, I am the fountain of living waters and I am the bread of life.
The last three beatitudes are the practical application of first having a heart of humility, mourning over the sin and separation from the things of God and hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Many churches emphasize serving. In Luke 10:38-42, when Martha complained to Jesus because her sister Mary was not helping her serve, Jesus reproved her. He said, Mary has sought the greater thing... to sit at the Master’s feet. The beatitudes are about being, not being busy. The beatitudes define the attitudes of heart of those whom God has called into fellowship with Christ. What is it that you value most? What is it that you love above all? Everything else is insignificant. The emphasis is on being and abiding with and within the love of God ... in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not what you do that counts, but more importantly, it’s why you’re doing it.
Jesus said, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Loving kindness and tender mercy are the nature of God himself. Without the Spirit of God, we cannot know and understand the mercy of God. Loving kindness and tender mercy are the most often used description of God in the King James Version of the Old Testament. Many people want to bargain with God and manipulate Him into giving us what we think we want. We say, we’ll worship the Lord if He’ll give us what we want. Serving God is similar to serving our spouse. What can I do to serve my spouse from a heart of love that my selfish flesh doesn’t really want to do? My challenge is to change my attitude to serve both God and my spouse from a selfless heart of love. Mercy is the manifestation of a heart of love. Like as a father cherishes and loves his children, so the Lord has mercy on them that fear, respect, honor, and love Him. Mercy is when others giving me the opportunity to be restored to an upright position after I’ve fallen and broken our fellowship.
Jude 1:2 says, may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. God is merciful ... otherwise He would never have forgiven us. Mercy is wrapped up in the love of God ... he has dealt with us, not according to our sins, not according to our nature of sin and iniquity, but according to His nature of loving kindness and tender mercy. Mercy does not recompense evil for evil. Mercy is the withholding of righteous judgement. In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. He chose us before we chose Him. Jesus told a parable about a king whose servant owed him ten thousand talents. The servant could never repay the debt so the Lord was within his rights to demand that his wife and children serve the Lord their entire lives to pay off only a portion of the debt. However, the Lord had mercy upon his servant who owed the debt and with a heart of compassion forgave the debt. Then the servant confronted another man who owed him only ten dollars. He began to choke the man and say, pay it back! I will not forgive your meager debt. His debtor said, please be patient with me... I will pay back all that I owe. Instead the servant had his fellow slave thrown into the debtor’s prison. Then others reported back to the Lord all that the fellow slave had done. His Lord said, what is it that you have done? You asked mercy from me, shouldn’t you have forgiven your debtor like I forgave you. Then the Lord took the wicked servant and made him repay for the rest of his life everything that he had owed. This parable is an illustration of the beatitude that says, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Forgiveness and mercy are above the rational response of a fallen world. Author C.S. Lewis said, “If you are looking for a comfortable religion, then Christianity is not that religion.” The beatitudes fly in the face of human logic. Even though men and women twist the truth of the Word of God and call good evil and evil good, God is still on the throne and what men meant for evil God meant for good (God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives).
He who is repentant and broken mourning over the sin that has separated him from God’s righteous standard, will come to the Lord with a broken and a contrite heart. With a heart of meekness, humility, brokenness and repentance we can approach God’s throne of mercy and grace forsaking our pride in poverty of the spirit, hungering and thirsting for God’s righteousness, peace, redemption, cleansing and salvation. A broken and a contrite heart God will not forsake, that they may restore our hearts according to the heart of Christ in us, that we may live to the praise of the glory of God’s grace!
Let's continue Michael's message on mercy in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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