The Mercy Of God

Today, we begin by being reminded that mercy is all of God. Regardless of who we are, or what we have done, we must understand that mercy is of God and God alone. In other words, mercy is according to God’s Sovereign will, purpose and design.

Throughout this week therefore, we shall spend time:-

• Listening, with unclogged ears, to truths about God’s mercy, which may not always fit into our myopic understanding of mercy.

• Learning, with deeper and more humbled hearts, spirit-revealed facts about God’s mercy and how free God is with His mercy towards all humankind.

• Looking, with surrendered and submissive being – heart, soul, mind and strength - to God the Holy Spirit, as He reveals deeper depths concerning the mercy of God.

Our received text is Romans 11: 32. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. 

When I read those words about God binding everybody to disobedience, so that He might have mercy upon everyone, I became totally puzzled, not understanding a bit of it. My mind is not stationary for it takes me to explanations and scenarios, which I know are not correct. For example, I’m thinking in this vein. Is God the kind of God who will make everyone ill, so that His power of healing will be displayed? Will He make everyone poor, so that He can bestow His riches upon them, showing His inexhaustible wealth? I’m saying, No! Never!

Albeit, at the same time, I’m thinking these thoughts. Just who am I, to say what God will or will not do? What about you? Have these words of the text brought you to some disturbances of thought and mind? All I know is that I am so encumbered, so burdened, so muddled and totally confused in my thoughts, I have to stop. Indeed! I am compelled to literally stop and look to the Lord. I look to Jesus, who once prayed and thanked His Father in heaven, for His wisdom in revealing and concealing Jesus’ spoken words. He thanked Father God for revealing His Living Word to the unlearned and concealing it from the learned. In other words, understanding of the Word of God, comes through revelation, given by the Holy Spirit and not by human understanding, reasoning and meditation, nor by way of intelligent, systematic study.  

I have given over my mind and all my thoughts to our Lord, so that I may know the simple, trusting mind, to be a true learner of God’s imparting. Will you also do the same, if you have such a need?

As the text is again brought before us, the word mercy is brought out, pulled out as it were, and stands large before each of us. What are we to be shown? What are we to know? What are we to behold of God’s mercy, even at this moment?

We are brought to a most controversial bit of Scripture, about God’s mercy, as found in Romans 9: 15. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. Many of us are quite familiar with those words, but have they found truth in us? Do they inform any of our lives? Are we at all conscious of them, when we so freely and glibly speak of God’s mercy, as it if were a grace, by right?  

May Creator, Sovereign, Father God, take pity on us and grant us His divine mercy, even now. Amen!