In my daily life, when I make a mistake, I face a penalty or punishment. When I am having a bad day, and I say insensitive things, I take out my frustration on my wife or children, I chew my dogs out, I know what is coming for me. It is time to pay. There are consequences for what I have done. I feel ashamed, but at the same time, I am way too prideful to say I am sorry.
But once in a while, I find out I didn’t have to pay. I didn’t have to suffer the consequences. I deserved a penalty or punishment, but no one gave it to me. Instead, what I got was forgiveness. I learned that I had been shown mercy. Someone in the world had just shown me mercy.
There are many places in the Bible that teach us to be merciful. You and I are to withhold the penalty or punishment when someone makes a mistake. In Matthew 9:13, Christ said, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” He said again in Luke 6:36, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” So why is it so hard for us to be merciful? As we go on with our daily lives, why do we not like to be merciful towards others? Why aren’t we more merciful—in our marriages, to our children, to our church family, in the workplace, on the freeways?
I think the reasons can be many, but is it possible we are not more merciful to others because no one bothered to show us mercy anyway? You see, it all evens out. For those who did not receive mercy, no mercy is required. If someone did not show us mercy, why should you expect us to be merciful to others? You shouldn’t. That’s how life goes.
You and I are sinners. We are people who make mistakes, again and again. So we say sorry to the people we wronged. But we still find a way to do it again. That is just how messed up we are. But the Bible says God looked down on us with compassion. He couldn’t stand to see us pay the penalty for our sin. So he took our place. He paid our debt. That is mercy. You find it all over the Bible. Paul said in Romans, “You who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy.” In 2 Corinthians, he wrote, “I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.” In Titus, he wrote, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” Peter said it this way: “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
You and I were spared from a great destruction for all eternity. Did you catch what I just said? We have been shown great mercy. This single act of kindness is what makes it possible for us to show mercy towards others. God does not ask us to try to be merciful by our own strength. That would be very hard. We would not be successful anyway. He asks us to be merciful because we have been shown great mercy. I think that’s how it works.
We all live in a broken world. We are all human. We make mistakes. We’ve hurt others and we’ve been hurt by others. We all need mercy. If no one in this world is giving out mercy, our planet is in big trouble.
There is no one like God, who is rich in mercy. Because of his great love for us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. For it is by grace you and I have been saved. When someone steps on our toes, it is OK to let it go. When someone mistreats us, it is OK to love. When someone says insensitive things to us, it is OK to show mercy, because we have been shown great mercy. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” To God be the glory, forever and ever.
