Nobody likes receiving the punishment he or she deserves.
It’s so much better when our careless outburst at work or reckless, ticketed behavior behind the wheel is met with mercy, not retribution.
We’ve all done things deserving of costly consequences. And sometimes, we’ve paid that price.
But we’ve also done things that should have prompted the sting of punishment but did not.
It wasn’t because the offended one was weak, but instead because the offended one was strong.
For, you see, mercy comes from the one who has the physical strength and the social right to punish us but whose emotional/spiritual strength allows him/her to choose grace.
I pray that you’ve shown grace to somebody recently, even though there was a voice within calling for “payback.”
If you were merciful, you demonstrated in faint form the nature of God.
One of the most compelling and correcting verses in the Bible is found in Romans 5:8. In concise manner, the verse defines the essence of mercy:
“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Listen, every human has been shown mercy by the fact that Jesus died for him or her as the most costly love letter in history.
I pray that you will make sure that investment of merciful love by God is applied to your eternal account by means of decision to accept Christ as personal Savior.
If you’ve already done so, I pray that you’ll help somebody else to appreciate and embrace this promise of love that will put them on the highway to heaven.
Even though — like ourselves — he or she doesn’t deserve it.
As always, I love you
Martin
