An Early Morning Dose of Mercy

Sometimes when I open my Bible, God sends me on a goose chase.  Not so much a wild one, but a journey, more or less, that takes a full circle and then comes back to me ... my heart.  This morning, I caught an hour to myself before my toddler woke up.  Man, I was pumped.  I had my skinny latte going.  I had my eggs going, my toast buttered and browned to perfection, and sweet raspberries on the side (cool money saver tip: Target has been selling half pints for under $2.50).  Honestly, I was feeling blessed ... no, I was feeling favored.  God's face was shining upon me.  I was so holy, reading my Bible and eating a healthy breakfast (of which I took a picture of to commemorate the moment - ha!)  And then I asked the Lord to reveal truth to me.  

After I prayed, I opened up to Psalm, chapter five.  I usually open my quiet time with the Psalms - there's just something transparent about them, and it usually opens my heart to confession and truth.  I came to this passage of verses and just started to let them sink through me:

Psalm 5: 4-7

You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil;

with you the wicked cannot dwell (sojourn)

The arrogant cannot stand in your presence;

you hate all who do wrong.

You destroy those who tell lies;

bloodthirsty and deceitful men the Lord abhors.

But I, by your great mercy,

will come into your house;

in reverence will I bow down

toward your holy temple.

What I immediately took from this was that David was putting himself in the group with the evil pleasure seekers, wicked, arrogant, liars, bloodthirsty and deceitful.  But by God's mercy, he found himself in reverence and submission before God's throne.  This made me really want to do a study on mercy, which took me to Matthew.  What better way to learn about mercy than through Jesus.  I found myself in Matthew, chapter 12, where the pharisees had reprimanded the disciples for snacking on heads of grain they had picked on the Sabbath.  It was against the Law of Moses to do any sort of work on the Sabbath.  Jesus then used their own playbook to show them the error of their mercilessness, quoting from the prophet Hosea, he said, "If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent." (Mt 12:7)

I read this and went to the quoted scripture in Hosea 6:6, looking for more information regarding mercy, and digging into this strong statement.  According to the commentary of Hosea 6:6 in my NIV Study Bible, "Hesed, a word that can refer to right conduct toward one's neighbor or loyalty to the Lord or both ... the same Hebrew word is often translated 'love'."  So, ultimately, mercy and love are intertwined.  How many times do we choose not to show mercy towards others?  Even the most fleeting thought of unvoiced, merciless judgement will permeate your conscience, but somehow we find a way to justify it and move on.

When it comes to relationships and righteousness, I always find myself going to the Book of James, which exactly what I did during my mercy word study.  The disciple expounds on the idea of mercy as an intertwined force with the other fruits of the Spirit in James 3:17-18, where he wrote, "But the wisdom that comes from heave is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."

So, this is where the Lord makes his circle, completing the 180 degrees back to my heart.  It was easy for me to pick on the Pharisees regarding judgement, but God answered my prayer and revealed truth regarding my heart, regarding my heart.  I found myself in a place of confession, saying, "Lord, forgive me for having a merciless heart toward others."  Mercy is a sincere, from the heart act of righteousness.  It connects us to others in deeper way and keeps our feet on the ground.