“And
when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to
command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’ But
He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You
do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy
men’s lives but to save them.’ And they went to another village” (Luke 9:54-56
NKJV).
In
Christ, we have a gift of mercy that we at times neglect to appreciate. God in His mercy, knowing completely our
unworthiness, freely grants us by grace, total and complete forgiveness and the
place and honor of being His child. We
are covered with the righteousness of Christ and there is nothing in that indescribable
gift that is made possible by our efforts or righteousness. It is thus His mercy and grace that flows
through us to others that will become light (Matthew 5:14-16), mercy (Luke
6:36) and the fragrance of life (2 Corinthians 2:14-15). We have to realize our need for His saving
and sustaining grace and realize by honest humility our complete inability to
enter the Kingdom of Heaven without it. Thus
it must be His grace saturating our every thought and action … it must be His
grace changing us from people of selfishness and sin into people of life and
light.
Our
ability to be merciful can be at times limited by our inability to see the
grace we have received ourselves. It can
be stifled by grieving the Holy Spirit and reverting to our own selfish ways. The
simple reality is this … we are hopeless without God’s mercy and grace. Our
failure to be merciful makes us look like the ignorantly unaware apostles in
their desire to apply judgment when Jesus was living out the very mercy of God
in everything He did on this earth. Mercy and grace bring us life and salvation and
it is only when we are merciful and graceful that others see the life and
salvation in us.
“And
be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ
forgave you”
(Ephesians 4:32 NKJV).
Suggested
Reading … Luke 9 and Ephesians 4
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