Blessed Are The Merciful

Meditation

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

(Matthew 5:7)

I am the recipient of God’s grace, over and over again in my life. Even before I repented of my sinful ways, I can see where God’s hand was guiding me, protecting me from myself. He’s been merciful to me in ways that are far too numerous to list but just the fact that I am writing these words with a contrite heart is the greatest of all for me. I deserve nothing but his derision and contempt, and he would have been just to let me spend eternity in hell. Instead, he loved me enough to make a way for me to be cleansed of all the filth in my life. All I had to do was accept his offer of salvation and I give him all the glory. Knowing that Christ wants to bless the merciful, makes me covet that blessing more and more every day.

You might ask, “How can I show mercy today? Unlike God, who has power and authority over all of Creation, I have no power or authority over anyone. How can I be merciful?” Actually, you have more power than you might realize. Almost every day of your life you are offered the opportunity to extend mercy to someone. It may be as simple as allowing someone to cut in front of you in a long line of traffic, or the checkout line at the store, even though they don’t deserve it. It may be something as important as forgiving an offense committed against you by a loved one, even if they don’t deserve it. Just as you and I do not deserve God’s mercy and forgiveness, but were granted mercy anyway, we should do the same for others. It may be as important as sending money to far away places to feed starving people.

I know every day of my life, I need God’s mercy. I fail him all the time. He is always faithful to forgive me when I slip up, even though I don’t deserve it. That’s because he is merciful. If I can’t extend small amounts of mercy when I’m given the opportunity, I cannot ask for God’s mercy. The key is to always be ready. If you’re attuned to the Holy Spirit’s leading, he will give you the opportunity to be merciful to someone. A side benefit of extending mercy is the feeling I get from it. When I am able to extend mercy to someone, I feel closer to Christ and that is a really good feeling. My real reward will come at the end of this life when Jesus grants me his ultimate mercy, eternity with him in heaven. Hallelujah!

Prayer Time

Father God now that we know from whom our salvation comes from, where else can we go? You have shown us such great and lasting mercy, why would we want anything else? You have been so good to us, even though our sins are great, you mercifully forgive us. We pray, Father, we can be as merciful to our neighbor as you have been with us. Help us to remember we don’t deserve your mercy and grace when you extend it to us. So, when someone who doesn’t deserve our mercy is put before us, help us to be merciful to them. In so doing, if they’re an unbeliever, we will show them what the love of Christ is all about. The flip side of that coin is, if we don’t show mercy when we should, what kind of mercy should we expect? We know we are not saved by our works, including merciful ones, but we show our faith in Christ by our deeds. We also know we don’t deserve to be in heaven with you when this life is over, but by your mercy, that is the reward we will receive. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen!