Saturday, April 22, 2017

"The Saturday Series" -11- "He Delighteth In Mercy"


(Friends:  Most Saturdays for the duration of this year, I plan on sharing a message that relates to the character and nature of God, and our response thereunto.  I hope you will find it helpful, and as always, thanks for allowing us to send the devotionals to you.  Glen).


The Saturday Series - 11

"He Delighteth In Mercy"     
  
  
   
    God's merciful heart of willingness to forgive offers one of the most beautiful expressions of His nature, character, and way.

    "He delighteth in mercy" (Micah 7:18).

    God loves to bestow mercy, so much so that the Lord Jesus Christ declared, "Joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth" (Luke 15:7).  In fact, our Heavenly Father so desires to forgive that He gave His beloved Son to a cross of shame, agony, forsakenness and death in order make possible the provision of mercy.  Thereby, at the greatest cost to Himself, He remained "just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:26).  God cannot simply forgive by determination.  He must remain faithful to Himself and His nature.  Thus, He executed the necessary wrath and judgment against the Lord Jesus so that He might execute the pardon of mercy toward us.  "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:20).

  What a Heart, a heart of the most amazing wonder of gracious tendermercies!  The truth shines all the more brightly because it stands in such contrast to our merciless nature.  Left to ourselves, no trace of mercy would be found along the bloody pathways of human existence.  We do not naturally forgive.  We rather seek vengeance against even the smallest offense.  Only the merciful influence of the Lord Jesus in the world provides the concept that forgiveness rather then revenge should characterize our response to wrongs committed against us.  The Bible's revelation of Divine mercy illuminates the darkness, educating all regarding the superiority of pardon over vengeance.  The Holy Spirit bears witness, and our Lord also calls His trusting children in Christ to proclaim that "His tendermercies are over all His works" (Psalm 145:9).  Indeed, no character trait of Christ in us more reveals the reality and redemption of God than our bearing the merciful heart that comes naturally to God, but supernaturally to us.  "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).

   God loves to forgive.  He delights in mercy.  I've written and spoken those sentences hundreds of times over the years.  I've thought about them even more.  I always find my heart stilled by the contemplation, and then overwhelmed.  I feel that right now, and I hope you do.  No truth more reveals the goodness of God, and no light more illuminates the sublime beauty of His character, nature, and way.  At the greatest cost to Himself, the God of mercy made a way of mercy for us through the Lord Jesus.  How indeed He must love to forgive.  How He must delight in mercy.  And how He must love and delight in us.  "He delighteth in mercy."

"There is forgiveness with Thee."
(Psalm 130:4)
"For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee."
(Psalm 86:5)


Weekly Memory Verse

   Weekly Memory Verse

   But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
(II Corinthians 3:18)
   
   
   



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