Love is mercy because God is love and that mercy cannot be manifested if we do not have the divine presence in our lives and our hearts. It is not about doing compassionate acts or giving away everything we have, it is clearly about what we have in our hearts, as the word highlights:
“And if I distributed all my goods to feed the poor, and if I gave my body to be burned, and I have no love, it is of no use to me” (1 Corinthians 13:3)
This quote shows us that mercy goes beyond what we can do humanly in society because it has to do with the love we have in our hearts and the willingness to do things unconditionally and not to please men. Let us remember that God searches hearts and knows everything about us.
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Love is mercy of God – Why we need to have it in our life
Mercy reflects what God has done in your life, and it feeds compassion, which is a light for a world in darkness that needs the presence of the Lord.
Mercy manifests the fruits of the Holy Spirit of God, where empathy, kindness, forgiveness and love are present. But true mercy can be found on the cross of Calvary where Jesus Christ carried out the divine plan, to free us from sin and give us eternal life.
Every believer who has been born again in Christ needs the love that is the mercy of God, where acts of kindness unite us as brothers, and manifest the wonders that the Lord does with his children.
We must be an example for the incredulous humanity that refuses to believe in God and also for the new believers, who are beginning the path in Christ. In this way, mercy is a characteristic of the one and only true God.
What is mercy according to the bible
The word tells us what the mercy of the Lord means: “The constant love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3: 22-23).
This quote turns out to be very encouraging since it tells us that God’s mercy is eternal and has no end. So at all times he is manifesting himself through his acts full of compassion, love and goodness in our lives, and even in the whole world, where the sun rises for good and bad.
God’s purpose arises from his merciful love for his people. Although he knew there was nothing we could do to get the way to the kingdom of heaven, he made a way through the crucifixion of Christ. By defeating death in this way, Jesus Christ opened access to the Lord for us.
In this sense, through prayer, the word of God and the Holy Spirit who remain in us, each day brings us a new mercy. So every morning of our existence, the Lord shows his fidelity, giving his children the gift of his infinite mercy. We can see this in the following verse:
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us live with Christ, even when we were dead in trespasses, it is by grace that you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2: 4-5).
What is the mercy of the Lord?
The mercy of the Lord is found together with what is true forgiveness. So what we do in our lives when we are compassionate and forgiving, we are proclaiming that we are children of God and that our lives are sanctified by him.
Our testimony is an example that God has the power to transform lives, to rebuild homes, to free and purify a soul corrupted by evil.
Therefore, once we have accepted Our Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts, the fruits of His Holy Spirit must be manifested, to confirm that we are sealed.
In this regard, the word exhorts us as follows: “Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be a son of the Most High, for God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:35-36).
In this quote God exhorts us to be equal to him, to give without expecting anything in return, without expecting to be rewarded for our good deeds. Simply when we do things from the heart, we are giving a portion of what God has given us, since nothing belongs to us, everything is his.
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For this reason, the mercy of God is one that brings us many benefits in our personal and spiritual life, since certainly by being merciful, our home will be blessed because the presence of God will always surround us with his love.
Among the benefits that we find in the mercy of our Heavenly Father are love, peace and joy, and people who are centered in Christ can see the world through their perspective, and that is why their love flows through their eyes. lives. So when we are merciful to our neighbor, his heart and ours are filled with a joy that passes all understanding.
And when we submit to his merciful ways, we are choosing to acknowledge the peace of the Lord. But if we don’t have Christ in our hearts, it would be impossible. As noted in the word:
“But you, Lord, are a compassionate and kind God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. Come to me and have mercy on me; show your strength in the name of your servant; Save me, because I serve you.” (Psalms 86:15-16)
In this sense, the mercy of our Lord turns out to be the cornerstone that characterizes God, and in the Holy Scriptures, there are many evidences of it and we can find this word repeatedly. God also mentions terms such as “merciful”, “mercies”.
4 Examples of God’s Mercy in the Bible
In the Bible we can see the manifestation of God’s mercy from the beginning, since we were created thanks to his love and kindness towards us. In this regard we can find different examples that show us the faithfulness of the Lord at all times:
1.- When the Israelites were in the desert
Moses was a biblical character to whom God entrusted the mission of freeing the people from slavery. However, once they were released, they had to cross the desert and many complained and did not understand the purpose of the Lord, as can be seen in the word:
“I wish we had died by the hand of the Lord in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but we were brought into this desert to starve this entire assembly.” (Exodus 16:3).
Faced with this display of ingratitude, God decided to be merciful to his people, since he loves them despite their rebellion. So he responded to his complaints with food to satisfy his needs: “I have heard the complaints of the Israelites. Tell them: ‘At sunset, you will eat meat and in the morning you will fill yourself with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.” (Exodus 16:12)
In this sense, the story of Exodus where the mercy of God, which is one of its main characteristics, is made present, we can see it repeatedly in the word. So these biblical characters were always surrounded by God’s mercy despite their rebellions and disagreements.
2.- The challenges of King David
David was a man after God’s own heart, and despite being short he was able to defeat Goliath with the help of the Lord. He was also a king chosen by God who had a somewhat murky life, since he committed adultery with another man’s wife and then was an accomplice in the death of her husband in battle.
Sin can reach even the most faithful followers of Christ, and its consequences will be present in our lives and will be part of our reality. However, God’s mercy is forever.
Faced with the sin that David committed, he prayed and repented for his sins before God and was forgiven: “The Lord has taken away your sin. You will not die” (2 Samuel 12:13). Despite the fact that the consequences of our bad decisions are hard and difficult to face, our Lord is merciful and never abandons us.
3.- Paul
Paul was a servant whose life was completely changed by God, he even changed his name, since he was previously called Saul. He had supported the crusades against the Christians and was responsible for many deaths. But on one occasion, Jesus Christ appeared to him, as we can see in the word:
“He said: Who are you, Lord? And he said to him: I am Jesus, whom you persecute; it is hard for you to kick against the pricks.” (Acts 9:5).
This servant of God was touched by God but he became blind, and when his sight was restored, he was able to see Jesus, so his mercy led him to forgiveness and activated his faith and moved on. In this way, Paul followed the ways of God despite all the calamities he had to face, since he had to suffer shipwrecks, beatings and be imprisoned.
While all this was happening to him, Paul dedicated himself to writing letters to encourage the churches he was forming along the way, since he was commissioned to be an apostle and to be set apart for the gospel of Christ: “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, was called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God” (Romans 1:1).
In each of these letters, Paul wrote about the magnificent mercy of God, since he himself had experienced it with his testimony, where the Lord had mercy on him and rescued him from the darkness in which he found himself.
4.- The adulterous woman was forgiven
All of us at some point have heard the story of the adulterous woman named Magdalena, who was going to be cruelly murdered for her sin. But Jesus Christ rescued her from her, just as the word indicates: “Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger… But may he who has never sinned cast the first stone!” (John 8: 6-8).
It is not known precisely what Jesus was writing in the dust, however, what we can notice in this act is the display of his mercy, since the men who were going to stone her dispersed and the woman was saved.
In this way, God’s mercy is no respecter of person, since he loves all his children and can see their hearts. That’s why he decided to save that woman, who was with him until the end of his days.
What does mercy mean for Christians?
Christians must be the first to put God’s mercy into practice in our lives, with our neighbors at all times, because this is what identifies us as children of God and reveals our new life in Christ Jesus.
Mercy allows us to experience forgiveness, love, peace, compassion, and joy, whether we deserve it or not. So we must put it into practice in our lives and not just live by appearances, because God knows our hearts. For this reason we must comply with what God commands us in the word: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
In this sense…