Have mercy on me

Lent Day 2:
David wrote in the 41st Psalm: But me? I said, 'Lord, have mercy on me! Heal me because I have sinned against you. .'

Let's talk about God's mercy this morning as we contemplate (or I hope we contemplate) what sins we have against Him.

What good word can we find about the mercy that God gives? In Exodus, he reminds us it is His and His alone to give: "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

David, as much as any, believed in the merciful God who watched over us. In both 1Kings and 1Chronicles, he said, “I am in deep distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great; but do not let me fall into human hands.”

And Jesus chimed in on the mercy train in the beatitudes when he said, "Blessed are the merciful,for they will be shown mercy."

What is mercy? John Wesley described it this way: Most simply defined, "works of mercy" are "doing good."

Wesley believed that "means of grace," included both "works of piety" (instituted means of grace) and "works of mercy" (prudential means of grace). He preached that Christians must do both works of piety and works of mercy in order to move on toward Christian perfection.

He said the merciful are the ones who love their neighbor as themselves.

John Stott said, "The Gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales."

If one were looking for a symbol of what God's mercy is, then, one need only look to the cross. The cross points to and the cross stands with and the cross bleeds mercy, God's mercy. The kind of mercy that is without question undeserved.

Today as I pray, let God's mercy rise and fall not on my shaky faithfulness, but his impenetrable strength.