I Give!

I ran across a picture in a box of keepsakes. It took me a minute to remember what was happening. We would clasp hands, facing each other, with our feet planted for a foundation. We would grit our teeth and do our best to make one of us loose our balance, or bend our wrist and call out, "Mercy!" The one that called mercy lost and the one with the straight, string wrists and better balance won. I remember it being a frequent game on our middle school playground in the 6th grade. Girls played girls, boys played boys, girls played boys. In the 6th grade it didn't matter. By the 7th grade, we girls rarely played mercy. It wasn't cool back then to over power the boys and by the end of 7th grade, their little boy muscles had become man cub muscles. Those interested in burning off energy played basketball or four square while the rest stood around and talked, or sat and read books. I wonder if I forgot about mercy, or at least the warped version of mercy. The game we played was about making someone cry for mercy, it wasn't like we gave mercy, we just stopped overpowering someone at their cry for mercy.

Today we are at the fourth of God's blessings for us. These blessings we given to us by Jesus and thankfully recorded by Matthew and can be found in the 5th chapter. This blessing Jesus shared is, "Blessed are the merciful, for thy shall be shown mercy.' Sounds like a fairly simple formula. You get what you give. Mercy is a funny concept. What Jesus meant by "mercy," was to have compassion by word or deed, by divine grace. Showing the mercy Jesus is referring to isn't just being nice, or kind, or worse, being as kind to others as they show kindness to us. Scripture tells us even the unbelievers are that nice. Jesus is telling us that God will bless us when we allow divine grace to flow to others, through us, we will receive that same divine grace. What is diviner's grace, you ask? Well I asked, so that meant I had to dig.

As I study, I am led to look for words of grace. All the way in the back of the Bible I find in Titus 3. Titus was an apostle of Paul and helped to start the many churches in the 1st century. He wrote, "God saves us because of mercy, not because we are good enough. He gave us new life, and transformation because of the Holy Spirit, all because of His divine Grace. That is our hope." (MUT - Monica's Understandable Translation) In other words we get mercy from God through His grace. Sometimes, that grace will need to flow through us to others in the form of mercy. 

What does grace flowing through us in the form of mercy look like? First, we have to realize this isn't our business. Divine grace is God's business. God decides who gets grace and who doesn't. It means that we don't get to understand why people do what they do, why God is giving them grace. Or if it is fair or deserved. Actually that is what grace is - unmerited favor from God. Additional, you also really don't decide if God chooses to use you or not, you just have the option to obey or turn God down. Let me repeat that for the kids in the back, you have the choice to turn God down. But who wants to be that guy? God may call you to mercy work, but God does the work of mercy. You just set back and go along for the ride.

There is a really cool spill over benefit to participating in the work of mercy God does for others through you. A spill over benefit is a situation or feeling that starts in one place but then begins to happen or have an effect somewhere else. In other words, the actual benefit of God's mercy work is for the person that is in need of mercy. But, the person that allows God to work through them, receives the benefit of the transformative power of mercy flowing from God through them to another. If you are the person God uses, your soul is shaped and molded into a heart more like God's. And there my friends, is the mercy you receive. All of this is courtesy of God's divine grace working in his created. For those of you that only give man made mercy to those you have deemed worthy, you miss out on God's mercy work in you. You only get to the measure you give. Or...maybe you are the one God needs to give mercy to. Something to ponder.

Today:

👉🏽 Give thanks for the times you received unmerited favor

👉🏽 Seek to give mercy

👉🏽 Now, seek to give mercy to someone without trying to decide if they deserve it