Exposed

Jesus said ^“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7, ESV) A simple definition of mercy is not getting something bad that you do deserve.  When we ask God to forgive our sins we are asking for mercy. David cried “Have mercy on me, O God,   according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” (Psalm 51:1)  Needless to say we need mercy.

A Christian is someone who has realized their need for God’s mercy and has cried out to Jesus to save them.  Because of this Christians should be the most merciful people on the planet. As a matter of fact, when Christians are not merciful there is something wrong. In Matthew 18 Jesus told a parable of a man who owed a king a great debt.  The man could not pay and begged the king to show him mercy.  The king did and forgave the man’s debt.   The same man went out and found someone who owed him money and demanded to be paid. The other man begged for mercy asking to be forgiven his debt, but the man would not.  When the king found out that the man he had forgiven would not forgive another man’s debt, he was furious. He rebuked him saying “should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’” (Matthew 18:33) The king then threw him in prison until he could pay all his debt.  The point of the parable is that once God has shown you mercy by forgiving you, you had better show others mercy by forgiving them.

Why would a man who was forgiven a great debt refuse to forgive another man his debt? The answer is that the man was not truly repentant in his heart. He just wanted to get out of a jam. When he got out of the jam he went back to being his old miserable self. In the same way people who call themselves Christians hearts are exposed when they have a chance to show others mercy. If you realize just how much God did for you by showing you mercy, you should jump at the chance to show mercy to others. How could we who cried “Mercy Lord!” and received it, not do anything but lavish mercy on others? If you refuse to show mercy to others it may show that you never really repented and turned to Jesus, but that you just wanted out of a jam.   Don’t be like the man in the parable. Instead be exceedingly generous in showing mercy to others! God was to you.