2 posts tagged “mercy”

On Saturday, the pastor I talked about in my last post from the mission team taught on grace.

He basically summarized grace by comparing it to mercy and justice - it wasn't a completely new concept to me, I had heard it shared in that way before somewhere (can't remember where though). Basically the idea is:

Justice is receiving exactly what you deserve - no more, no less

Mercy is receiving less (punishment) than you deserve.

Grace is receiving favor when you realize you deserve justice and can only barely hope for mercy.

The perfect picture of this is of course the Prodigal Son: the son realizes he justly deserves separation from his father, but hopes maybe his father will show enough mercy to at least let him be a servant and stay in his barn or something.

But the Father shows grace: He runs to meet the son, hugs him, kisses him, interrupts him in the middle of his repentance speech, gives him an expensive ring, the best clothes, and throws a huge party for him.

Christ paid the full price of our sins (because of the perfect justice of God). When we accept Christ, God not only completely erases our debt (out of mercy), but He also creates us anew, gives us His Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing even more to come, and gives us many, many promises - out of grace.

Thank God for (frikkin') amazing Grace.

On Saturday, our Unplugged service was about James 2, where James talks about favoritism and judgmentalism and how it shows itself in the church and in our lives. We had a great discussion with tons of people sharing out of their own lives how easy it is to keep too much of a distance from people you don't get along with or who are difficult.

I realized that seemingly everyone has tough relationships like that in their lives. It seems like those relationships are specifically the ones where we should pay most attention to what God is doing there, because they create the most emotional friction and heat in our lives, and therefore can be used greatly by God to mold and shape us. Those relationships are really often the heart of where God is trying to work on my heart.

For me, a challenge is dealing with a couple of guys at work, since we're worlds apart when it comes to our interests, our values and ethics, our politics (or in my case, lack thereof), and our way of thinking. But God challenges me in James 2 to not love or value them any less than myself - to be merciful rather than to judge them. When I say "merciful" I don't mean it in the sense of an almost prideful mercy, but more as a humble attitude and way of thinking - that is, not being self-righteous, not focusing on what I dislike or disagree with, rather being loving, accepting, and focusing on what I appreciate.

Another thought I was reminded of during the time was how Jesus' Golden Rule is pro-active rather than prohibitive. All other major world religions have the Golden Rule in a negative form "Don't do to others what you don't what them to do to you." And that's the way most people take Jesus' version of it. But let's never forget Jesus is not telling us what not to do, but rather actually challenging us to initiate and to take action: "Do to others what you'd have them do to you."