Showing posts with label mercy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mercy. Show all posts

Wednesday

The How of Mercy - A Dose of Encouragement


Having looked at various aspects of God's Mercy this month including
What is Mercy?  
When can I receive Mercy?  
The Where, Why & Who of Mercy

 plus

Not focusing on our guilt because of His Mercy in You're Not guilty Anymore last month

we have now come to the last blog post on Mercy which I hope will make us sit up and pay attention because although we do not earn God's Mercy we do need to do something

              we need to receive it.





Yes we have a choice we can receive it wholeheartedly and believe what God has said or we can never get out of our guilt and remain in a state where we never fully rejoice in His great love for us.




How Do We Obtain this Mercy?

By the Grace of God through Jesus.

Mercy is extended freely to us and even if we don't comprehend how God would ever desire to be so good to us we need to receive this offering.

But

Sometimes
     We don't even recognize His Mercy

Sometimes
     We don't even realize we need His Mercy


Yes
God gives His Mercy but we need to accept it.

That is okay at Salvation - we completely get it then and are so thankful for it then.


But we also need to accept it throughout our Christian walk.


Yes even though we know He is merciful we don’t really take it in properly that He is always merciful to us and we don’t think we can have this beautiful thing He is offering so we don’t accept it and we stay in a state of not forgiving ourselves and feeling unworthy to do anything for Him
.






1.     We must truly believe He is Merciful.

        None of the

  •         He can't really like the way I still can be?
  •         He couldn't possibly use me for His Glory? 
        Let me tell you He is still merciful even if you have been saved 40 years.



2.     We must not listen to the devil.

        None of the

  •         You can't be forgiven yet again.
  •         You can't believe God has the patience for you


3.     We must listen to the Holy Spirit.
     
                 Condemnation comes from the devil but encouragement comes from the Holy Spirit


4.     We must read and believe the Bible.
     
                 This will help us to see the examples of His Mercy and understand it better.


5.     We must know that we are special to God.
     
                 You must accept it even if you find it hard to understand - You are special to God.


6.     If you believe He wants to save you; you also have to believe He wants to show His Mercy to you.


Mercy is God's but it is also Ours.
We must allow God to show His Mercy.
We must accept His Mercy to live the life He means us to live.
The life where we are not condemned or unworthy to work for Him.
The life that is under His hand and not under the devil's.
The life that can then also extend Mercy to others.




How Should We Show God's Mercy?

By allowing the Holy Spirit to work through us.


Remember the Beattitudes

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." 

Being merciful means to show kindness to everyone and to forgive those who do things that may hurt you. It is realizing that everyone makes mistakes.





One of the great examples to us of mercy in the Bible comes from John 8 v 1-11 
  
 1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

 (KJV)  from BibleGateway.com



Mercy doesn't focus on a person but on a person's need.



Mercy is active compassion to someone in need

mercy banishes revenge

mercy keeps us grounded

it imitates God but disappoints satan

Mercy says "not my will but thine be done"

We do not know better than God

so accept one another as God accepted you.


If we focus on the person we will tend to fall back into the "deserve or earn" way of thinking




REMEMBER

God loves us so much with His great love   (Ephesians 2 v 4)





that He is rich in mercy which means   (Psalm 100 v 5)






























He has so much mercy for us that He will never run out of it

And this was not just said for the people at the time it was written because it clearly states here that it is everlasting

so rejoice because it means He is still rich in Mercy TODAY toward US.





How can we not be thankful that our God is so generous in 
His Mercy.



The Other Blog Posts in this mini Mercy Series are:
What is Mercy
When Can I Receive Mercy?
Where, Why, Who of Mercy





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












When Can I receive 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.


Then last week I started this short series on looking at God's Mercy in more detail and covered the question
What is Mercy?





Today I would like to come back to look again at this subject and consider when God's Mercy is shown upon us.



When Can I receive Mercy?



On Salvation

God is shows mercy to us as sinners and extends His mercy so deliberately at the point of Salvation.
In fact isn't He so merciful that He wants to draw us to Salvation and has provided His perfect plan in Jesus to be our substitute at the cross.
This is the obvious time in our lives for us to witness His mercy towards us and to understand partly what His mercy entails because suddenly we truly know we are being treated with Love and not rejection and death as we really deserve.





From Creation

Right from the start of mankind God’s mercy is shown.
 All the way through the Old Testament.
 All the way through the New Testament.

His mercy was not just produced at the cross although it is His greatest sign of mercy.

Mercy is an attribute of God so has always been part of Him, and always will be part of Him.



For Evermore







Every Day

God is merciful to us every day at all times it does not stop at Salvation.
This is the part that is hard for many Christians to fully understand, often we do not feel that God can possibly continue to show His mercy to us once He has Saved us. Even though we will read about it and sing about it and speak about it we still deep down do not accept that He is always a merciful God. It is one of His attributes and He doesn’t change so He is still merciful.


"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."  Lamentations 3 v 22-23


New Every Morning what a blessing!
1. Each day we can start afresh knowing that He is still merciful.
2. Can we even experience new different examples of His mercy on a daily basis?
            Yes God is infinite so His Ways are infinite


Edith McNeil wrote the words of this song based on Lamentations 3 v 22-23

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

His mercies never come to an end,
They are new every morning, new every morning,
Great is Thy faithfulness O Lord,
Great is Thy faithfulness.


She was leaving us with a great prompt to help us remember that God extends His mercy to us on a daily basis.

Not only that but this song should be on our lips each morning as we rise to face the day with the new mercies He will extend in that new day.

We need to accept His mercy that is given so freely to us and be thankful for it daily.

Even when we do not feel worthy of it.

He has not put any conditions on it.


Let's be thankful for His Mercy even when we do not feel worthy of it.

And the last & most important comment is

Right Now

Aren't we thankful for that!



Enjoy this version of the song today and then go on to enjoy His Mercy.






The Other Blog Posts in this mini Mercy Series are:
What is Mercy
Where, Why, Who of 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.




No New Year Resolutions? - A Dose of Encouragement


Are we thinking about the end of a year?
Are we thinking about the preparation for a new year?

Yes because let's face it, all of us will have something in our minds about the new year.
It may not be resolutions as such and with me it definitely isn't but I still have some kind of plans and hopes and thoughts going through my mind as to how I want to do certain things during the year but then on the other hand I also have loads of things that I should have thought about more in advance for this coming Year.







However regardless of how organised or unorganised I may be throughout the year to come will that make any significant difference to God's plan for me for this year?

No

because His plan does not depend on my organised life or even my organised thoughts but I believe He is waiting to see whether or not I will be obedient to His Word and His Spirit prompting me day by day.

Let's see 

Where am I writing this post?   

When am I writing this post?


I am writing this today, New Years Eve in the late afternoon while I wait in Currys Electrical Store in Sprucefield, NI for my husband to pay for a item we have just picked out in the sale.

I will not be able to post this until sometime this evening after I get home, get internet connection and get this finished and edited.

Other things will be more important and need to be done before I get back to this.
I may even have to wait until after we have our dinner although my plan would be to do this earlier.
But will it make a lot of difference whether it is posted before dinner or after?

No

because again God's plan does not depend on my great organised efforts or plans but solely on whether or not I am obedient to Him even today.



So I do wish everyone a







but I do not have any New Year Resolutions



nor have I made any of those lists that I love to make.


This year I do want to be more organised, I do want to be more prepared in advance for events but I really want to be more open to listening and obeying.

I am writing something I feel is important for me and for others to be encouraged knowing that each year, month, week, day are not governed by how well we organise them or plan for them but by God's Love and Grace and Mercy extended in each one of them.

I am writing so that we can be encouraged that God's plan for the year ahead is not going to succeed or fail because of us but rather that we will be enriched by our participation in His Plan when we are simply obedient to Him.


So this year 

no New Year Resolutions for me!

no Lists and Plans in advance for me!

just a prayer








Maybe you want the same thing in this New Year.




















Sunday

Why We Worship 9




I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"


Today I want to look at God's Mercy.


Mercy is "not getting what you deserve". 


ie.  It is like a judge finding you guilty of a crime, but then not administering any punishment.


The Bible tells us that God is Merciful towards us.




So God shows us his mercy by not giving us the punishment we deserve.

          The punishment we should receive because of the sin in our lives.

          The Punishment which should be death and complete separation from God.


This is a compelling reason for us to worship God and give Him thanks.








Thank you God that you are a merciful God.


Can you pray this along with me?