Internal Adornment: Part 6

It is Week 6 of our series in the Beatitudes. In previous weeks, we have considered the following subjects:

• God’s desire for internal righteousness (Matthew 5:1-4, 20)

• Spiritual poverty (Matthew 5:3)

• Mourning (Matthew 5:4)

• Humility (Matthew 5:5)

• Holy ambition (Matthew 5:6).

Next, we consider this – “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Mathew 5:7).

The word “mercy” comes from a Greek word that means “sympathetic” or “charitable.” To be merciful is to show sympathy or love to those in need or in some state of misery or unhappy circumstance or condition; it is responding to the needs of others. Chuck Swindoll uses the image of getting under someone’s skin … in a compassionate sense (Improving Your Serve, pg. 111).

Mercy is more than hoping someone’s needs are met; it is sitting down on that sidewalk with the homeless man, putting your arms around him, and meeting his need in whatever way you can. True mercy is not discriminate (Psalm 145:9). True mercy love who he wants to love; he loves the unlovely.

Why are we to me merciful? Because God’s mercy is great (II Samuel 24:14; Daniel 9:18; II Peter 1:3), God’s mercy is immeasurable (Ephesians 2:4-5), God’s mercy is eternal (Psalm 136:1), and God’s mercy compels us to show mercy (Luke 6:36).

We can show mercy in church discipline by making our aim restoration and not “finger pointing” (Galatians 6:1). We can show mercy in marriage by being quick to forgive (Proverbs 17:9). We can show mercy in our friendships by protecting our relationships from gospel and slander and bitterness. We can show mercy to the needy by giving them food, water, shelter, and/or clothing.

Jesus says those who are merciful will be how mercy. Showing mercy is proof that God has shown you the mercy of saving you. Jesus is saying, “Be merciful, and I will continue to show you the riches of my grace and mercy to you by saving you.”

Want to grow in mercy? Be broken over the mercy that God has shown you. Think about your sin, your fleshly indulgences, your prideful way of thinking and inability to do anything about becoming more and more evil. Then consider, God’s foreknowledge of this problem and how He designed a plan of redemption.  Weigh heavily God’s choice for a sacrifice. He didn’t decide to keep the blood of a goat or bull pure to atone for sin. He sent the most precious gift He could give. There wasn’t anything more priceless or valuable then His Beloved Son.

There is a hymn written by Isaac Watts rarely sung entitled “How Sweet and Awful is the Place” with the following stanza

“How sweet and awful is the place With Christ within the doors, While everlasting love displays The choicest of her stores.

While all our hearts and all our songs Join to admire the feast, Each of us cry, with thankful tongues, Lord, why was I a guest?”

If you can get a handle on this reality – that God treated His Son on the cross as if He lived our lives, then you will run to mercy every chance you get as a reflection, response and pay-back for the mercy show to you.