Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
When I was first saved I stumbled into the fact that God always seemed to answer my prayer for mercy. I prayed a lot of other prayers that did not seem to move God, but my heart cry for mercy evoked a response from heaven, sometimes immediately. Later I discovered a blind man in the New Testament called Bartimaeus whose cry for mercy stopped Jesus in His tracks. Mercy opens the door for miracles (Mark 10:46-52).
To this day I have not been able to find one instance in the New Testament where someone sincerely asked Jesus for mercy that He did not grant it. Whether it was blind men on the side of the road, a Syrophonecian woman’s daughter (Mark 7:25-30), ten lepers (Luke 17:10-19) and even a legion of demons that begged Jesus to not send them to the abyss (Mark 5:1-13).
So from my earliest days as a believer I have known God as a merciful God. I suppose it was because I needed so much mercy and still do. Looking back now I realize how vital a revelation of mercy is to truly know God and be enabled to walk in His ways.
In Psalm 89:14 it tells us mercy is foundational to all that God does. Mercy actually announces the arrival of God. So when we sincerely pray, “Lord have mercy” we are releasing God into the situation and are covering it with His mercy (Psalm 145:8-9).
In the Old Testament the very place that God ordained for man to meet with Him is called the mercy seat (Exodus 25:21). There were times when the mercy of God is invoked through prayer or songs and the glory of God was revealed (2 Chron. 5:2, 11:3-14) and enemies were defeated (2 Chron. 20:21-22).
I will never forget a particular day in which the revelation of mercy became very dear to me. I saw a young lady who had severe physical deformities and I became troubled in my heart as to why she was suffering such a horrible fate. Later as I prayed about this my eyes fell upon the mystery of mercy (Rom. 11:25-32).
Mercy is so important to God because all of mankind suffers as a result of the fall. God desires to show all of us His mercy. When I saw this I realized at that moment I was really no different from the deformed young woman apart from His mercy. Every person who needs salvation, healing or a miracle needs mercy.
It is so vital to not know mercy simply as a truth about God, but as a revelation of His character. He is called the “Father of all mercies” (2 Cor. 2:1-3). The revelation of His Fatherhood is directly tied to His mercy. We will never consistently know Him as our Father apart from a revelation of mercy.
I believe this is why Jesus told us “Go and learn mercy” (Matt. 9:9-13). It was so we could know the Father heart of God and out of that revelation abundant life flows freely and fully. This is confirmed by Paul’s assertion that it was an ongoing revelation of mercy that empowered his success in ministry (1 Tim. 1:12-16).
The revelation of mercy will also lead us into the revelation of the mind of Christ. In the NIV version Romans 12:1 begins with, “In view of God’s mercies…” then it goes on and talks about life transformation by the renewing of our mind.
This year, let’s be intentional to continually go to the throne of grace that we might have mercy and grace for help in time of need (Heb. 4:16).
Many Blessings, BW