A while ago (okay a long time ago) I wrote a note on here entitled “Mercy a privilege.”
This note (the one you are currently reading) is going to be a continuum or a continuation of that note(old note :mercy a privilege).
Funny because just when I think “AH, Father I have mastered this subject! I have learned and now know all there is to know about this ____ (and you fill in the blank).
This is especially a temptation for me. Though I would never say aloud, I do sometimes get into the mindset, the rut, of thinking that “I have arrived” I know all there is to know. But God is always faithful to bring me down from that “cloud” or that high horse as it were. To expose the pride in that, and to show me that a hard fall awaits me if I do not repent of that and humble myself realizing that I have not nor will not “arrive” spiritually while on this earth!
Proverbs 16:18
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
You see if I have the mindset that “I have learned all there is to learn” I will not be looking for areas of struggle, I will not be looking for the deeper truths that God has to teach me. I will be caught up in my pride and arrogance!
And God has again, gotten a hold of me in this area!
When I wrote that note “mercy is a privilege” I was totally floored by that concept! By the fact that because God is my avenger I do not have to worry about and waste my life and time with “getting people back”, but rather I instead I can leave it to the Righteous and truthful God to do. He frees me so that I am able to show mercy to others!
Just think God could have made it so that we had to “pay people back” but He does not! He frees us to be able to show
Love and mercy to the ones who wrong and hurt us!
Let’s face it we live in a sin cursed earth….Interuption from normal train of thought for a random annoying sidenote from Bethy: The earth though sin cursed is still beautiful…oh the irony of that! I can only imagine what it will one day be like when it is not under sins curse, I mean if it is this good now… God must be like “And you think this is good my prodigal? You just wait…it gets WAY better!”…sorry for the sidenote anywho where was I???
AH yes sin cursed earth!!
WE live in a sin cursed earth with totally depraved sinful beings, and yet somehow we think that we can manage to go through life totally unscathed…unhurt…unviolated…unused….etc. by the people here.
In fact I am often shocked when others sin against me! Oh the irony of that!!
Let’s face it we have been, are and will be sinned against as long as we are here. But there is good news! We don’t have to respond to those people with the same kind of behavior!
If we know Christ as our savior we have been “set free” from sin, we no longer have to live in sin!
“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” Romans 6:6
“You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” Romans 6:18
And God has said that He is our avenger, He will avenge us!
Romans 12:19
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
So you might be thinking, okay I can see now, mercy is a privilege! And that is AWESOME!! But you might be tempted to think…well okay Bethany, I don’t really struggle with vengeance anymore! I used to when I was a child…you know hitting a sibling after they took my toy, or stealing from a neighbor after they stole from me etc. But now that I am grown I don’t do that! Only murderers do that!
When we are little our sin begins to appear very early on, in throwing temper tantrums as babies, to biting and hitting as toddlers and tots, to stealing and bullying as middle schoolers
As we grow older we generally grow out of certain sins (hitting, biting, Note: I said generally…not everyone does..not naming any names! Jj jk lol!). But does this mean that our sin is gone?
NO it just means that we have become more sophisticated and it is a lot harder now because it is more easily hidden and a whole lot easier to blame shift, and to call good evil and evil good!
How so praytell? Okay when someone wronged you as a child you probably hit or bit them right? (when you were really young…one and two. I would know cuz I experience this at work, the irony though is parents like to blame shift this claiming that “my child is just teething…just needs to chew!” ha-ha! Are you joking! NO, your child is a totally depraved human and it is rearing its ugly head in the form of biting another child out of a selfish love of self! Oops another annoying side note…man these keep popping up! My apologies!)
Anyways so you hit and bit as a child to get back! Now I would like to say that today I no longer hit…bite but I am just as bad as I was then because now I gossip and think bad thoughts. What am I doing when I gossip? What do I want to accomplish?
I want to “feel better about myself” I want to put that person(s) down; I want others to feel bad for me and to see just how bad that other person is! This is a selfish love of self rearing its ugly head again, this time in a different way!
WOW!
So you might be thinking, okay mercy is a privilege, and that is a flooring thought! And you might agree with me that gossip is a form of vengeance seeking. But now you might be like…okay this is pretty much what you said in your first note of mercy being a privilege. And that is peachy keen because now I have lead you to the clincher of this note!
I had thought that I had learned all there was to learn on the subject, then the other day in chapel God was like “NOPE! My silly wandering prodigal, here is something new!”
God is SO deep and His Word So rich it can never be fully learned! Learning is a lifelong process!
Here is what He has been teaching me lately:
Mercy is a privilege and this in and of itself should be reason enough to show mercy to others at all times in front and behind them. This should be reason enough to choose to trust others. You see if you are being merciful you will do and give to others the things that you do not think that they deserve. Too often I think that mercy is just giving people gifts, going out and buying things for them. But mercy in its basic truth is “giving others what they do not deserve” and it encompasses SO much more than just the application of “giving gifts to others.”
Let’s face it there are times when we don’t think that people deserve our trust, our forgiveness, our love, our friendship, our time, our money, our devotion, our encouragement, even our service!
And the list could go on!
You see we should be counting it a PRIVILEGE to do these things for people, and not just the lovely people, who you know will do the same in return to you, this is to be done for everyone, to be counted a privilege to do for everyone, esp. those who have wronged you, who you think don’t deserve these things that God calls us to (list above).
Another reason to do these things (if it being a privilege is not enough) is because people do not answer to you! They don’t answer to me! Imagine what a different world this would be if we all lived in light of this truth!
If we allowed this to affect every interaction, every word, every deed!
Who do all people answer to?
Psalm 96:10
“Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns; The world also is firmly established, It shall not be moved; He shall judge the peoples righteously.”
Psalm 96:13 “For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with His truth.”
All people will answer to God, and He judges so much better than us!
“he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth.” Psalm 96:13
He knows us better than we know ourselves!
“But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 samuel 16:7
We cannot even see our own heart, fully know it, let alone someone elses, so who are we to judge?
Truth be told, we are not the judge, so why not leave it to the one who not only SEES the hearts but also FASHIONS them!
“ He fashions their hearts individually;He considers all their works” psalm 33:15
So He knows how best to judge! So why not leave it to Him?
My dad once told me that : “Bitterness always hurts you more than it hurts your enemy” and how true!
It steals life away from you! It wastes it! It stops you from being used of God to serve, love, give to, encourage those around you because you are too caught up in “paying them back”, even if it is just in your thought life, it still will eventually stop you from being used of God because your thoughts directly affect your actions (verse Christ…heart)
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander” Matthew 13:19
What is IN will eventually come OUT! It all starts somewhere, and that somewhere is our hearts!
We must be faithful to guard this part of our lives especially in the area of bitterness! We cannot let it take root, for then we are assuming the position of God! We are judging and that is not our place!
All of you reading this have probably been hurt by others in ways that I will never know, or even imagine. You have been devastated and ridiculed and hurt (emotionally/physically) and just pushed to your limit, all because someone sinned against you. And I realize that what I am saying may be very very difficult for you to even grasp or wrap your mind around, because of the immense pain that has been caused to come upon you by the sin of another against you.
But there is hope! Don’t run yourself short on the hope that you have in Christ! He has given us everything we need to lead godly lives that please Him, this includes the strength and grace that it will take to not allow bitterness to take root! To not take vengeance in your heart, or by gossiping about that person!
Take advantage of the privilege you have to show mercy! Leave the judging to God! And remember NOT EVERYONE ANSWERS TO YOU ( obviously if you are in a position of leadership then yes some may answer to you) but that EVERYONE ANSWERS TO GOD! Imagine how different I, you, the world would be if we would remember and most importantly live in light of this truth!
“He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth.” Psalm 96:13
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