"Go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,'" - Matthew 9:13

The point of hardships in life is to learn how to have mercy on one another, because we know everyone is going through something similar to what we’ve been through. God wants His children to learn to play well together and get along, before they’re allowed into heaven.  For love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8) and God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13).  God doesn’t bring the hardships, but he uses them for the benefit of those who love Him.  So this competitiveness that we see, race against race, party against party, class against class, nationality against nationality, is antithetical to God's purpose for us.  Learning from this is impossible without God’s power and prayer, so if there’s any lesson that I’d want to impart in this week’s post, it’s that we need to pray that God molds us in the ways of mercy and love, and that there is peace among humankind throughout the world.

Since the purpose of hardship is to learn how everyone needs mercy, we throw away the point of life when we ask to take away resources from poor and struggling people because we assume they're all “lazy” or “gaming the system.”  We've struggled in our own lives, and people have had mercy upon us – perhaps we have not struggled financially, but we have struggled in some way that has put us in a bad emotional state.  And we had a friend, teacher, relative, or other person help us out emotionally.  Especially when we were young children and struggled, someone was kind to us and helped us emotionally.  We owe our lives to their kindness, because without emotional stability, we would have no success in life.

It gets harder to convince someone of this if they don't have emotional stability, but if that's you reading this, here's what you need: more mercy.  Seek out a counselor or clergy and develop a counseling relationship, or even a friend or acquaintance you haven't talked to in a long time.  Immerse yourself in prayer to God whenever possible.  Seek out mercy for yourself, not vengeance against those you believe prevent you from success and stability.  I guarantee that you will find no peace in vengeance, because I was that person and I fantasized about taking vengeance upon those who had wronged me.  The only time I started finding stability and emotional success was when I sought out people who had mercy upon me.  Even if it was inconvenient for them.  Those people were my parents.  And when they had mercy upon me, I began to emotionally stabilize and become a happier, more loving person.  

The definition of God's power is “love” (God is love – 1 John 4:16), and when we give and receive His power to and from others, we find more peace than any amount of vengeance could ever bring (it would bring NO peace, by the way).  God brings this peace, because all peace comes from God.  But our obedience to God’s commands to love allows Him to bestow blessings of peace upon us.  On the other end of the spectrum, when we take advantage of others because they are in a weaker position than us, either socially, or at work, or financially, etc., we pursue the opposite of what God wants from us – mercy for the least.  When we deal shrewdly with each other, we deal as the Unjust Steward deals in Luke 16:1-15, as opposed to the faithful steward who is responsible with his master’s possessions.  We are responsible when we bestow God’s possessions of love upon our neighbors, regardless of how they act toward us.  When we have mercy and give to our brothers and sisters in need, be it money, clothes, or love, we obey God's commands for us.  In a world in which we reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7), we should sow generously (2 Corinthians 9:6) so as to receive mercy from God as the good steward, and the faithful servant.

The logic of God is incredible.  Those who give mercy will receive mercy, and love (mercy is a form of love) covers all sorts of sins.  These two concepts, from Matthew 5:7 and 1 Peter 4:8 are completely congruent.  That is what covers our sin!  The concept of receiving mercy for our given mercy implies that we NEED mercy, that we are not perfect.  This is why Jesus says He did not come for the righteous, but for sinners.  Because the “righteous” don’t ask for mercy – and when we do this, we become unrighteous in the eyes of a perfect God.  It is thus imperative that we all see ourselves as imperfect people needing mercy.  Knowing this, we see that we do not need to be perfectly sinless to receive heaven from God.  1 John 1:8 says there is no one without sin.  We do not have to die completely perfect in order to see God immediately upon leaving this world.  Once we believe, we just need to show mercy and love, which can be done in many ways – giving donations, praying for someone, counseling someone, or simply telling someone that you love them.  

We cannot accomplish this by ourselves.  Only God can accomplish this in us.  So the best way toward mercy is praying for God to perfect us in love.  Because, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” This also implies that we attempt to continually pray and repent for our failings.  Because if we don’t attempt to stop sinning, we will cease to continue living in love (1 John 4:16), and sin will dominate our lives to the point that we can’t hear God.  That is a scary place to be.  I’ve been there before.  You can’t feel the Lord when you pray.  It’s as empty as having never known God’s love.  But God lets us feel it so we repent and come back to Him.  

So mercy is not all we need in our lives, but perhaps it is what we need most.  Mercy is the trait that blots out our shortcomings in the sight of God – our inability to obey God.  When we have mercy on others despite their shortcomings or inability to stop sinning (even against ourselves), we will receive mercy.  This is why there is such an emphasis on showing mercy (Matthew 5:7, James 2:13, Matthew 9:13, Psalms 28:6), forgiving (Matthew 6:14-15, Colossians 3:13, Mark 11:25, Matthew 18:21-35), not condemning (Luke 6:27, John 3:17, Romans 8:34, Jude 1:9), and not judging (Matthew 7:1-2, Luke 6:37, Romans 2:1, Romans 14:3, Romans 14:10, 1 Corinthians 4:5, James 4:11) in the Bible, especially the New Testament.  The measure we use will be measured against us (Matthew 7:2).  This means that if we measure other people as undeserving of God’s love because of their failures, we may be measured as undeserving of God’s love because of our failures.  We are not the judges – or the condemners, or the measurers.  God is.  And we should not try to become like God in this way.  But we can always repent!  We are alive, we are breathing, so let’s call out to God when we fall short!

We are fellow children who should HELP our brothers and sisters out of their sin and into the love of God, who is Jesus.  We do this by showing love and mercy to them.  By forgiving not 7 times, but countless times (Matthew 18:22).  By loving even those who consider us their enemies, or those we consider to be our enemies (Matthew 5:44).  By living in love, and thus living in God (1 John 4:16).  For when we hate a brother or sister, it is as if we do not know God (1 John 4:20).  So let’s love our disobedient brothers and sisters into obedience to the Father, not judge them for their disobedience while we are still disobedient in our own ways.  God’s logic in this is incredible: we get from Him what we give to others, be it mercy or judgment.  Let’s pray for God’s supernatural power in our lives, so that we can show mercy and love to others.

Furthermore, we know God makes mercy and love the point of life because 1 Peter 4:8 says that love covers a multitude of sins, so if we are getting the main point of loving, our sins that we're trying to avoid but don't succeed at avoiding are covered by the mercy that we show to others.  We know this from Jesus' statements in Luke 7:47: “But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”  By this, we know the reverse is also true: he who has been forgiven much, loves much.  For those who give mercy to the downtrodden will receive mercy for their failings (Matthew 5:7), and those who forgive those who sin against them will have their sins forgiven (Luke 6:37).  God wants us to just get along in this little world, and we make it so cruel despite the obvious spiritual and even emotional benefits of loving others.  When we become cruel with others, we are storing up judgment for ourselves – so let’s pray for God’s power in our lives, and repent when we fall short!

So to summarize, when we receive the Lord, we ask for undeserved mercy.  If we receive it, then withhold it from our neighbor, we are no longer following God's law.  When we no longer follow God's law, we are storing up for ourselves judgment instead of mercy, when the power of God in our lives could allow us to show mercy to others instead of contempt.  We just need to pray for God’s powerful love to emanate from us out into the world, and continue praying until God grants us this incredible blessing.  We may never be perfect before we leave this earth, but God sees our effort and knows our heart.  If we are trying to please God, even when we don't succeed, God sees us and gives us credit for not giving up and trying our best.  Let's pray for mercy upon others who don't deserve it, just as we received mercy when we didn't deserve it.  No one deserves it.  But the point of going through every hard thing in our lives was to learn that we all need it, and we all need to give it.  Let's drive this point home in our minds right now – please pray with me:

Father, I know I have not been perfectly merciful.  I know there are times when people needed mercy and I didn't show it to them.  Father, please help me to show mercy to all your children, even if I think they don't deserve it.  Help me to understand the mercy I've received from you, even though I did not deserve it, and to show it to others just as you showed it to me.  Help me to love my neighbor as myself, and in doing so to love You better.  Bring your incredible power and perfect love to the forefront of my mind, so that I may be merciful when others need it, and so I may receive mercy from You when I am hurting.  In Jesus' name, Amen.