Act Justly, Have Mercy,Walk Humbly Part 2

     

Hi friends,

         Hope  you are all doing well. In my previous post I mentioned to you how God had been speaking to me through Micah 6:8 as to what He requires from us. We saw Part 1 which describes what it means to Act Justly, today let us study what the second part means   

2) HAVE MERCY –                                 

                              

  

According to Zech 7:9, "True justice actually means to have mercy." Now let us see what mercy means.

Mercy means compassion, pity, forgiveness, kindness, sympathy, understanding, benevolence.

To understand this better let us see what MERCY is not  . The opposites of Mercy are Cruelty, unkindness, meanness, nastiness, brutality/malice, spite, vindictiveness, viciousness ruthlessness, heartlessness, harshness.

The above words are easily a clear description of the world we live in today. Tuning in to the morning news would give you the visual imagery of the same.

Lam 3:22-23 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Psalms 136:1-26  Repeatedly tells us from 1^st verse till last verse :  “O give thanks to the Lord for His mercy endures forever.”

Mathew 5:7 “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.”  

                             

There is a small difference between LOVE and Mercy. MERCY means extending LOVE even when the other doesn’t deserve it. It is easy to Love but what about MERCY ? This is an area I struggle a lot  and He has been repeatedly reminding me how when  I didn’t deserve MERCY both He and many loved ones in my life had extended me MERCY.As He opened my eyes I could see what I was blind to earlier and this brought a new prayer on my lips "Lord Make me Merciful just as you are Merciful." Do for me what I can never do in a 1000 years no matter how hard I tried. And the process of Sanctification continues as He’s teaching me…to be Merciful….
Luke 6:36  “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful”

1 Pet 1:13 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”                

No matter how kind we may be, living in this fallen world often fills us with spite due to bitter experiences in our life, especially when the good we do is repaid by evil. Our natural inclination is then to harden our heart and become harsh in our dealings with those causing us pain. This will cause us to lose our sensitivity to the still small voice of  the Blessed Holy Spirit who leads us into all righteousness empowering us to be Holy even as our Father in Heaven is Holy. In fact Mercy is actually a FRUIT of the SPIRIT.

 Related post :SPIRITUAL FRUIT SALAD

Knowing all we have gone through and going through and will go through, He still commands us :
Mathew 9:13 “ Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
When tempted to justify our unkind actions and blame our hard heartedness on our compelling circumstances, let us remember Our Precious Lord Jesus lying bruised ,broken ,naked ,humiliated and alone on that Cross. 

The ISV Bible says Jesus kept saying, "Father, forgive them, because they don't know what they're doing."

Related post :PERSONALITY OF GOD - PART 4 HUMANITY 

And what were we complaining about? The Good News is that our God is so rich in Mercy and we can be sure that no matter how badly we mess up and miss the mark, we can always find Mercy as we rush to His Throne of Grace with tearful eyes and repentant heart. He is a Good Good God whose mercies endure forever.

Heb 4:16 “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” 

Ephesians 2:4-7 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”                                   

We can be sure that as we learn all other things by sheer dependence on the Holy Spirit, we can learn Mercy as well.

Psalms 23 :6 “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Click below and enjoy these  catchy  MERCY SONGs :   

2) Some Mercy for ME ! Greater is the one Living inside of me

 by MERCY ME -

Prayer : Lord fill us with your mercy. Help us to be merciful to ourselves and to others just as you are Perfect Father.Make us more like your Blessed Son Jesus. Holy Spirit empower us .-Amen

Hope you enjoyed this post. Next post we will examine part 3 in the series.

Have a blessed day!

Sparky Laurie

Related posts : PART 1 Act Justly , Part 3 Walk Humbly