Walk
329. Dead people can’t obey God’s laws.
They need mercy and a miracle!
There
are thousands of Scriptures indicating that God is merciful, and that He wants
us to express His mercy towards others.
These are just a few:
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the
righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Matthew 9:13).
“When Jesus departed from there, two bind men followed Him,
crying out and saying, ‘Son of David, have mercy on us!’” (Matthew 9:27).
“But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the
guiltless” (Matthew 12:7).
“And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and
cried out to Him, saying, ‘Have mercy
on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed’” (Matthew
15:22).
“‘Lord, have mercy
on my son,’ he said. ‘He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls
into the fire or into the water’” (Matthew 17:15).
“Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow-servant just as I had on you?” (Matthew
18:33, NIV).
“And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they
heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, ‘Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!’” (Matthew 20:30).
“Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet;
but they cried out all the more, saying, ‘Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!’” (Matthew 20:31).
“Woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have
neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without
leaving the others undone” (Matthew 23:23).
“Jesus did not let him, but said, ‘Go home to your family
and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you’” (Mark 5:19, NIV).
“For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he
may have mercy on them all” (Romans
11:32).
Definition
of Mercy:
According
to Strong’s-Greek concordance, mercy
means “kindness or good will towards the miserable and the afflicted, joined
with a desire to help them.”
“He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and He will
pay back what he has given” (Proverbs 19:17).
“He who gives to the poor will not lack, but he who hides
his eyes will have many curses” (Proverbs 28:27).
“He who by charging excessive interest and who by unjust
efforts to get gain increases his material possessions, gathers it for him [to
spend] who is kind and generous to the poor” (Proverbs 28:8, Amplified Bible).
“He judged and defended the cause of the poor and needy;
then it was well. Was not [all]
this [what it means] to know and recognize Me? says the Lord” (Jeremiah 22:16,
Amplified Bible).
“For to him who has shown no mercy the judgment [will be]
merciless, but mercy [full of glad confidence] exults victoriously over
judgment” (James 2:13, Amplified Bible)
“And you [He made alive], when you were dead (slain) by
[your] trespasses and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1, Amplified Bible).
“Then the just and upright will answer Him, Lord, when did
we see You hungry and gave You food, or thirsty and gave You something to
drink? And when did we see You a
stranger and welcomed and entertained You, or naked and clothed You? And when did we see You sick or in
prison and came to visit You? And
the King will reply to them, Truly I tell you, in so far as you did it for one
of the least [in the estimation of men] of these My brethren, you did it for
Me” (Matthew 25:37, Amplified Bible).
Definition
of Poor:
Taken
from Strong’s-Greek concordance: “oppressed in mind or circumstances, brow
beaten, afflicted, especially in feeling, meek, poor, accepting their bondage,
dangling weak thin and needy, feeble empty dried up, impoverished, not being
equal.”
Definition
of Pity:
Taken
from Strong’s-Greek concordance: “to bend or stoop in kindness to an inferior;
to favor, bestow, be fair, deal, give, grant, be gracious, merciful, have
mercy on, have pity on, pray, make
supplication.”
“And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him,
saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said
to him, ‘What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?’ So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the LORD
your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and
with all your mind,’ and ‘your
neighbor as yourself.’” And He said to him,
‘You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.’ But he,
wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ Then
Jesus answered and said: ‘A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among
thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and
departed, leaving him half
dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And
when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise
a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the
other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he
was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he
went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he
set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the
next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the
innkeeper, and said to him, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend,
when I come again, I will repay you.” So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him
who fell among the thieves?’ And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then
Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise’” (Luke
10:25-37).
According to the above Scriptures and according to the
theme of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, when we pour ourselves out to assist
and have mercy on the helpless, we are doing it to Jesus. How is that? I submit that since He and the Cross are timeless, that in
some way perhaps our mind cannot totally grasp the fact, that He is in those
suffering people actually feeling their pain.
In the Good Samaritan story, Jesus defines our neighbor as
the Samaritan. I think most people
think that the neighbor was the dying man on the side of the road. Jesus said that the neighbor was the
Samaritan, and that must be Him. It also must be Him in us doing the same thing
for others because He said, “Go and do likewise.” The whole point of the story was to answer the question,
“Who is the neighbor we are supposed to love?” He said that the two most important commands were to love
the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and to love
your neighbor as yourself.
I submit that when you break this story down, that
loving the Lord and loving your neighbor is exactly the same. You can’t love the Lord with all you
have got, unless you are giving undeserved mercy to someone who needs His
mercy.
I know it’s kind of a mind twister, but think about it. In the story, the religious folks who passed by had too
much on their mind. They had a
sermon to preach or something to do in the Temple, and they were running
late. After all, “we can’t miss
church.” Also, had they helped
this dying man on the side of the road, they would have become “unclean” and
they needed to do their work in the Temple; how could they do it in an unclean
state? Notice, that both the
Levite and the Priest passed by on the other side of the road and really
avoided this poor guy. Do you
think that made their conscience feel better? You know, like, “Oh, what man? I
didn’t see anyone.”
Maybe these religious guys should have stopped on the side
of the road and asked the dying man if he went to their church, or if he has
tithed regularly, or if he was pro-life or pro-abortion. Then perhaps they could have reached
the bottom line of his “problem”.
After all, if he really was “living right” he wouldn’t be there, right?
Perhaps they should have invited him to their Temple so that he could “make a
decision to live right.”
Job’s friends were so sure that they were perfect and knew
all the answers, and they kept telling Job that he needed to do this or
that. The Bible tells us that Job
was lacking some attitudes, sure, but it was his friends’ task to help him, not
to criticize him.
Maybe the reason that it took a Samaritan to be merciful to
the hurting guy was that the Samaritan had been persecuted all of his life,
called a nothing, a racial half-breed, a godless person, uneducated,
unimportant. He knew what it was
like to be down, to have nobody care about him, and could not bear seeing a
poor soul on the side of the road be treated that way.
If I look back over my life with the Lord, every time He
leads me to repentance and to confession of a lousy attitude or sin, He does it
indirectly; by showing me His love and grace, not by confronting me with a “do
this or die” type of attitude.
I really like the Hebrew definition of “pity” stated above,
especially the part that says “having mercy on an inferior”.
I’ll never forget the real religious person to whom I
mentioned that about six years ago.
They said, “Oh yeah, I even sit and eat with someone whose skin is not
my color.” You missed the
point fellow! There is only ONE who can bow to an
inferior, and that is the Lord Himself.
How can it be, that the Creator became a servant and washed the dust off
of the feet of a bunch of grizzly fishermen, the very ones He created from the
dust? So how can we bow to an
inferior? Only Christ in us can do
that, and we need to empty ourselves, submit to Him, and He does the work! When we see hurting people and all we
want to do is to bash them with the Bible, then it is time to confess our sin
and let Christ in us take over!
How much credit can we take for “making a decision for
Jesus, or accepting the Lord, or becoming a Christian” if He says, “while you
were dead in your sins I gave you life”?
Dead people don’t make decisions! Dead
people can’t obey God’s laws. They
need mercy and a miracle. The
kindness of God leads men to repentance.
Humans are seeking for unconditional love. Only God through us can provide that.
The Pharisees: Jesus called the Pharisees blind
guides, blind fools, money hungry.
He said, “You tithe but
that you omit the more important matters like judgment and mercy and fidelity.”
I submit that this was a direct reference to Zechariah
7:9-14 (Amplified Bible) which says, “Thus has the Lord of hosts spoken: Execute true judgment and show mercy
and kindness and tender compassion every man to his brother; and oppress not
the widow or the fatherless, the temporary resident or the poor; and let none
of you devise or imagine or think evil against his brother in your heart. But they refused to listen and turned a
rebellious and stubborn shoulder, and made heavy and dull their ears that they
might not hear. Yes, they made their
hearts as an adamant stone or diamond point, lest they should hear the law and
the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former
prophets. Therefore there came
great wrath from the Lord of hosts (and the wrath of God was satisfied on
His Son fully… nothing was left out). So it came to
pass that as He cried and they would not hear [He said], So they shall cry and
I will not answer, says the Lord of hosts, But I will scatter them with a
whirlwind among the nations whom they know not and who know not them. Thus the land was desolate after they
had gone, so that no man passed through or returned, for they [the Jews by
their sins] had [caused to be] laid waste and forsaken the pleasant land (the
land of desire).”
So many Christians today are complaining about the sin of
America or the sin of our culture and society and how our culture is going down
the drain if we don’t turn back to God.
They complain about abortion, about secularism in schools and other such
matters. This all is true and
cannot be denied. However, I
submit that the bigger issue is that if God’s people don’t stop beating down
everyone who is not like them, that the promise in Zechariah 7:13 will come to
pass: “So they shall cry and I will not hear.” Who? The people
who get abortions? No. I submit it is the ones who call
themselves God’s people. We will
no longer hear from God unless we start exercising mercy and true judgment and
begin to show kindness and tender compassion, every man to his brother. The poor folks out there don’t know any
better… we should!
Jesus told the Pharisees, “You filter out a gnat and gulp
down a camel” (Matthew 23:24).
“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the
Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to
humble yourself and walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, Amplified Bible).
Jesus told them, “you clean the outside of the cup and of
the plate, but within they are full of extortion (prey, spoil, plunder) and
grasping self-indulgence” (Matthew 23:25, Amplified Bible).
This may be hard for some, but I submit that when we
demand that the poor sinners act like we do, that they live according to the
law which is written on our heart and not theirs, that we are being selfish and
self-indulgent.
We want things for our convenience! We want a “Christian” government so
that we don’t have to sweat things, we want this and that law, or some law done
away with. We demand morals here
and there. Even the disciples
wanted to change the government, but Jesus never did.
Sure we want the best for our children, but we have the
spiritual resources to live a supernatural life in this world just like Elijah
did, just like Paul did, just like Peter did and just like John did.
Our attitude should be that:
1) We are going to heaven.
2) We have overcoming power for the here and now. We have it made! We need to spend ourselves to show the
kindness of God to the lost; they have it hard enough without us beating them
over the head! Jesus said that
when you fed the hungry, clothed the naked and visited those in prison that you
were doing it to Him. I doubt that
those folks who are hungry, naked and in prison are those who we would even
have over to dinner!
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