Where, Why, Who of Mercy? - A Dose of Encouragement

Each Wednesday this month I am looking at the topic of Mercy.

Last week I considered the question When Can I Receive Mercy?

The week before I started this short series with the question What is Mercy?

Today I would like to consider where, why and how God's Mercy is shown upon us.

Where:


A   Where Does It Come From?


Mercy comes straight from the Heart of God which is full of Love.


Not from our actions for us to be worthy of it.
Not through the church.
Not from the Bible.


But straight from the Heart of our Loving Heavenly Father and Jesus our loving Saviour and the Holy Spirit who guides us.

B   Where Can We Receive This Mercy?

Anywhere!

The same as at any time.



We do not need to be in church.

We do not even need to be in prayer.

We do not need to set up special circumstances.

It is available anywhere we need it.

How wonderful is that?

How Encouraging is that?

How can we not be thankful that our God is so present and considerate in our lives.

Why:

There really can only be one reason why God extends Mercy to us all.


Because it is part of the Character of God.

Because He made us and He is both Loving and Just.

Because He wants to be the giver of Mercy.

Who:


We need to think about the Who behind the Mercy.


In this blog post we have already mentioned the Loving Heart of God which is the source of this Mercy.




In the previous post we talked before about how The Saved as well as the Unsaved receive God's Mercy.

Because God’s mercy is not just for Salvation.

God’s mercy is for all (anywhere, anytime)

Our Gracious, loving God who is the giver of Mercy is the one who decides all about the mercy we receive.  We do not have any say in how this mercy is given, or why it is extended to us.

God is in control of everything to do with His Mercy

But at this stage YOU need to consider just 

who YOU are. 

Are you a sinner who is receiving God's Mercy as He draws you in to recognise His great love for you?


Do you need to seek His forgiveness for your sin and accept His Salvation through His Son Jesus?

If the answer here is Yes, then you are at the point where have an ideal opportunity to accept the greatest act of Mercy and bow to the acknowledgement of Christ as your Saviour.

Or are you a Christian who is receiving God's Mercy as He lifts you up and holds you in His hand no matter what has just happened in your life?


Christian Let's consider

WHO you are!

and

Who you are Not!

As the Redeemed of the Lord

You are not:



Guilty

Broken

Crushed

Filthy

Condemned

Worthless

Captive

These are just the things the devil wants you to believe you are.

Photo Credit:  Bigstock

You are:

Faultless

Loved

Holy

Righteous by the righteousness of Jesus

Pardoned by God

Forgiven

Cleansed

Blameless

Redeemed

Spotless

Whole.

And most of all:

"You are Mine" says the Lord

The Other Blog Posts in this mini Mercy Series are:
What is Mercy
When Can I Receive Mercy?
The How of Mercy

What is Mercy? - A Dose of Encouragement

Last month I wrote about God bringing my attention to a special song to share about His Mercy in the post You're Not Guilty Anymore.


Today I would like to draw some more attention to
God's Mercy.

The obvious thing might be to start by looking at
What Mercy is,

but

I think it is important to focus first on
what it is NOT!



Mercy is not:


A Gift of the Spirit.

Gifts of the Spirit are given to believers.

Mercy is extended to everyone.

Even to the people who have not accepted His Salvation, God has extended His Mercy.
Even to those who never accepted His Salvation, God gave them the chance to receive His Mercy.


A Fruit of the Spirit.

The Fruit of the Spirit is the result in believers of walking in the Spirit of God.

Mercy is not listed as a fruit of the Spirit in the Bible but rather it is one of the attributes of God it is part of His character.

"He is kind and full of mercy; he is patient and keeps his promise. . ."  Joel 2:13

As we grow and the fruit of the Spirit is produced in our lives then we will become more like Jesus and more merciful in our character because all the fruit of the Spirit are expressed when in a merciful character.


Something we can earn.

Mercy is freely given by God, not something we have to (or can) earn by how good we are or how much we do.

There is no grade of person we must be to attain Mercy or be worthy of it.

Mercy is:

God not treating us as we deserve to be treated.

We are so used to being rewarded, commended, praised or punished, rejected, attacked, condemned for our actions and words that we just naturally expect God to react to everything as others do.

But God is God 

and 

He is not like other people.

Even when in the eyes of everyone else we deserve punishment, even when we have broken God's laws, God decides what He will do so

His Mercy is

the act of  

NOT 

meeting out the punishment we really do deserve to get.

Shown in the form of several things.

There are many things that we could list here that would form part of His mercy like love, cleansing, forgiveness, and acceptance.
They are the ways we should recognise His Mercy.

It is like our mother heart for our children, we do not always punish wrong doing, we talk to them in love and explain things to them and show them the right way.
We are actually setting them examples of the type of God's Mercy.

By our mother heart for our children, we can actually be setting them examples of the type of God's Mercy

A Lifter of depression and oppression.

It is God's hand on us.

If He turned away from us when we disobeyed or didn't follow Him then His hand would not be on us and if His hand is not on us then the hand of Satan would be on us.

So each day when God's hand is on us we are receiving His Mercy in keeping the hand of the enemy from us even when we don't realise that is happening.

This means that Satan is hindered from continually oppressing our minds and bringing depression upon us.

Photo Credit: BigStock

MERCY
is

NOT

the receiving 
of the damnation that we are due 

BUT

the
offering
of a 
substitute 
to take 
our 
punishment

Are we like Jonah?

Jonah did not think the Ninevites merited the patience God was showing them and the second chance He was willing to give them because he did not understand what mercy was.

Even though he then disobeyed God and ran in the opposite direction God preserved his life, God showed him mercy.

Jonah did not have a merciful heart toward the people of Ninevah until he himself had fully experienced the mercy of God.

Even if we start out like Jonah we can also learn to recognise God's mercy toward us and in turn be merciful toward others.


Let's thank God for His mercy to us and have mercy for others stamped in our hearts

If you did not listen to the song "Not Guilty Anymore" by Aaron Keyes in the blog post last month then you can listen to it here

Join me for some more thoughts on
When Can I Receive Mercy?
Where, Why, Who of Mercy
The How of Mercy

You're Not Guilty Anymore! - A Dose of Encouragement

Two years ago I was asked to pray for someone I had never met.

Someone who was depressed and although I was not given much information on this person I was told that they did not think they were "good enough".

Now you may immediately think that we need to know in what way they feel like this to be able to pray for them but that is not so.  Even though we may not have details, God knows them and understands them better than anyone else ever can.

I prayed for this girl and prayed for the person who I knew would have most contact with her because they would need to know God's guidance in this situation.

I knew that I really could not do much more than pray for this person but I longed to be able to reach out in some other way so I prayed about that also.

Each morning Fred & I would pray about this situation after breakfast and then about a month later one day we were driving along in the car listening to some music when suddenly we heard a song that we had never listened to before but instantly it drew my attention.

There was something about the tune that was special but really it was the words that captured me.

The song was called "Not Guilty Anymore"  by Aaron Keyes.

I just kept clicking back to the start of the song so that we heard it over and over again.

Most of the worship songs we sing are of our feelings towards God but this was a song more like God talking to us.

It's a song that seeks to help us get out of the negative thinking and into that positive realm of realising just exactly what God has done for us and what it means to be on the receiving end of His great mercy.

Do you know how God views you?

We need to know how He sees us because of His Mercy to us through Jesus.

If you are a child of God, you have already received His mercy so believe and trust in that because you are not guilty anymore through the blood of Jesus.

If you have not repented of your sins and accepted God's forgiven and salvation then He still wants you to know that His mercy and salvation is offered to you.  He wants you to come to the place in your life where He can tell you that you're not guilty anymore.

You're not guilty anymore - Mercy of God!

I felt that God had given me this song at this time to be able to pass it on to this person we had been praying for to let her know how special she was to God.  So I looked up Aaron Keyes on YouTube and got the link for the song and passed it on not a hard thing to do but a difference was made.

I'd like to pass it on to you here as an encouragement especially for you because YOU are special to God too.

I had also been asked to speak at a ladies meeting later that year and had felt God impressing Mercy on me as my topic so I'm sure you can guess that I ended with this song that evening too.


If you are interested to know more about God's Plan of Salvation please watch the short 3-2-1 Video in the sidebar on the right.

Songs for Worship #9

Welcome to the Sunday Series

Last year from January to June I wrote a series on
Why We Worship  where I considered an attribute of God each Sunday.


At different times people mentioned to me about a song that a post reminded them of so I thought that I would now go through those attributes again with a song for each one.

I hope you will follow along with me.

                         Looking today at 

God is Merciful

Not Guilty Anymore

It doesn't matter what you've done;
It doesn't matter where you're coming from
Doesn't matter where you've been
Hear me tell you
I forgive

You're not guilty anymore
You're not filthy anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours
You're not broken anymore
You're not captive anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours

Can you believe that this is true
Grace abundant I am giving you
Cleansing deeper than you know
All was paid for long ago

You're not guilty anymore
You're not filthy anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours
You're not broken anymore
You're not captive anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours

There is now therefore no condemnation
For those who are in Jesus

You're not guilty anymore
You're not filthy anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours
You're not broken anymore
You're not captive anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours

You are spotless
You are Holy
You are faultless
You are whole
You are righteous
You are blameless
You are pardoned
You are mine

You're not guilty anymore
You're not filthy anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours
You're not broken anymore
You're not captive anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours

You're not guilty anymore
Not guilty anymore

If you would like to see the post from last year that this is based on please click on the graphic below