Monday
Matthew 5.7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
It isn’t often that the word mercy becomes headline news; or that a plea for mercy becomes politically controversial. For readers of the Bible from the Psalms to the Prophets, and from Micah to Jesus, mercy is one of the moral imperatives of a life obedient to God. “Mercy is a generous attitude which is willing to see things from the other’s point of view and is not quick to take offence or to gloat over others’ shortcomings.” Being merciful is a requirement of all those who follow Jesus, seeking the Kingdom of God, Jesus couldn’t be clearer on God’s approval of being merciful!
Tuesday
Luke 6.36 “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
Jesus has just spoken about loving and doing good to those we consider enemies. Loving our enemies seems entirely counter-intuitive. However, Jesus is calling his followers to a radical transformation of how we restore, sustain and redeem relationships that have gone wrong. Mercy is to be our first response. Mercy is a personal initiative, a freely offered invitation to a new beginning. The best part is, by being merciful we act in ways that affirm and imitate the generosity of God. It’s a very short step from praying “Lord have mercy” to praying, “Lord make me merciful.”
Wednesday
Psalm 103.8 "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love".
When Jesus calls us to be merciful, it helps if we can define “mercy” clearly, so there can be no misunderstanding – or get-out clauses! If we are to be merciful as God is merciful, our verse above gives an expansive paraphrase - gracious, slow to anger, and filled full of the love that stays faithful and dependable. So when Jesus says, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”, this is the familiar understanding of mercy he was working from. Interestingly, the Sermon on the Mount has quite a lot to say about the blessings of mercy, the dangers of anger, and the love that reaches beyond what makes sense to us. The Sermon describes this astonishingly gracious and steadfast love of God which we are called to model as followers of Jesus.
Thursday
Micah 6.8 “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
These three requirements are all part of the one consistently righteous life before God. Justice, mercy and humility can’t be separated in our life of obedience to God. What’s more, these are not options, they are obligations under God. Micah is spelling out God’s priorities, those acts and attitudes that control how the people of God speak and act, how we conduct our relationships and use our money and belongings in all the transactions of daily life. It’s a searching check-list of what community life should be like, first in church, then as witness to the world – justice, mercy, humility.
Friday
Matthew 9.12-13 “Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Sacrifice was one of the central acts of worship in Israel. Sacrifice was an act of devotion to God, from which a life of obedience and righteousness followed. One of the essential marks of a righteous life is mercy, compassion for the poor, care for the suffering, welcome to the stranger, feeding the hungry. Sacrifice without mercy is hypocrisy; worship by those who couldn’t care less for others is not only a waste of time, it’s offensive to God. As John says, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.“ (1 Jn 4.20)
Saturday
James 2.13 “Judgement without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgement.”
A heart that does not do mercy is judgemental, and sets the rules by which it too must be judged. When we pray “Forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors”, that isn’t just pious window dressing. If we refuse to forgive, close our hearts to someone else’s pain, or fault, or predicament, then we nurture hardness in our own spirit. We are a hard path on which the seeds of forgiveness cannot grow, a calloused spirit unable to recognise our own need of mercy. When the choice is between judgement and mercy, it is mercy that is the game changer and life giver.
Sunday
Psalm 23.6 “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord, for ever.”
And there it is. Our whole life long we have been pursued by the goodness and mercy of God. We have lived and loved, worked and rested, given and taken, grown up and grown old, and never once has God’s mercy been absent. Mercy is the compassion of God’s grace, the gift of God’s peace, the assumption on which all that is most important in our lives is securely founded. God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love". So, if God is merciful, go and do likewise!
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