mercy

Who is to Blame?

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Reflecting on my life today filled with struggles and setbacks but how God has shown me so much mercy! Why? Who is to blame, or rather, who is to thank for God’s mercy on me? I know that God is “the Father of mercies.” I know that personally I have done nothing deserving of God’s mercy. So how is it I feel as if God has shown me so much mercy over the years? I know the things I’ve done and how I have acted and at times even rebelled against God, but there’s still mercy. There was mercy when in times of rebellion He disciplined me. When I think about where I should have been in the moments of my sin, I can’t help but wonder at the extent of His mercy for me. With all that being said, I believe there was someone in my life that God loved so much that He decided to show me great mercy. My parents have been faithful in serving and living for God all my life. God has loved them so much that He has shown “me” great mercy.

Just think, that how much you love and serve Christ could result in great mercy on the lives of your children. I believe that’s part of the reason for God’s mercy on me, but there is someone else that has brought mercy down on me. God has loved His Son Jesus so much that He has shown me mercy.

Let me ask you, do you know about the mercy of God? Don’t you know that He should have stopped us along time ago? But He is so patient and kind, and His desire is to show us great mercy! His mercy endures forever and for the fact that you have read this, God is affirming His mercy on you. You might not be able to point to parents or someone else for the cause of God’s mercy on your life, but you can certainly point to the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

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Have You Come to Yourself?

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“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” Luke 15:17

This was the turnaround moment for the prodigal son who had taken his inheritance, traveled to a far country, wasted all that he had been given, only to find himself at the very lowest place he could go. I have imagined over the past few days how long this young man had already been living in the pit of life. Life pits are everywhere and many are headed that way today and many have just come from that miserable place. You most likely will run into someone today. We can only wonder and speculate what it was that caused the young man to come to himself. It definitely had something to do with his memory, because he remembered how well his father’s servants were treated. He must have thought, “If I’m going to be someone’s servant, I want to be one of my father’s servants, because he treats them so well.” This young man was wearing rags and was starving to death and completely alone and at the most desperate place in his life—and that’s when he came to himself. What a moment! That should speak to us today. You don’t have to live in misery. You don’t have to stay where you are and keep doing what you’re doing. But you must come to yourself and start walking towards the Father. Just like the prodigal son’s father was daily looking and waiting on him, our great God and Father stares towards the far country expecting one of His own to come home. This is a good day for someone to come to their senses, as one version translates it, and start your way back home to God. Our Father will receive you with grace and mercy and with great joy!

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Going to the Next Level

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Parents often are forced to go to the next level when attempting to gain the attention of their children.  It happens in every home where the child gets so captivated in a movie or in a game that breaking away to listen to mom or dad becomes a challenge.  But when the child is unresponsive to the beckoning of the parent, the parent usually goes to the next level to get their attention.  The first level is normal volume conversations and if that doesn’t work, the parent goes to the next level by turning their voice volume up.  If the child is unresponsive to the change in volume, the next level could be a threat to remove from the child whatever it is that has captured their attention.  When the volume level and threat levels do not work, parents still have another level to resort to and that is to turn off or snatch away whatever their child is mesmerized by.  

We must know that in our walk with God, when we become unresponsive to His attempts to get our attention, He goes to the next level.  This spiritual progression is often regrettable in that it should not take that much for us to turn and heed the voice of the Lord, but sadly, too often it does.  In 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 we read,

“When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

God has used this coronavirus to get the attention of some of His children, but still there are many unresponsive inviting God to go to the next level.  One effective level God uses to get our attention is sickness and health issues, even death.  That doesn’t mean that every sickness and every death is a calling from God to get your attention, but it has proven to be effective.  Another effective level God uses is accidents that lay people on their backs, but again not every accident is God trying to get your attention.  God is not limited in the ways He works to get our attention.  Many times the plain preaching and proclaiming of His Word by men and women filled with the anointing of God gets the attention of those God is calling.  God got the attention of the Ninevites by the loud voice of a rebellious man who had been released from a whale.  

The point is, does God have your attention by what is taking place in the world today or does He need to go to the next level?  Joni Eareckson Tada once said, “God permits what He hates to accomplish things that He loves.” Perhaps God is gently using this short blog to say, “Hey, I’m talking to you, stop what you are doing and listen to me.”  

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Pray

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You are not hopeless or helpless in crisis pandemic events that shake the world.  There is a shaking taking place right now in the hearts and minds of the masses, and you can shake in fear with them or you can conduct yourself to prayer.  To pray, you have to pray!  Our concern over the global pandemic should be expressed in fervent prayer pleading for God’s mercy.  Listen, God is expecting all of His children to show up before His throne in prayer during this time.  The question is, can you pray and will you pray?  God will move if we will pray, but we must humble ourselves before Almighty God and seek His face.  

2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.  

The future of the coronavirus and the global pandemic may very well hinge on one little word, “If.”  People can be scared to death and still not pray.  People can be scared to death and pray, but not pray with the humility God requires.  To humble yourself and pray means you’ve got to come down from a high place and get in a low place before God.  God will move mightily when He sees the posture of His children change from lofty to lowly.  God will move mightily when He hears the tone of our prayers change from demanding to desperation.  God will move mightily when our cries are for mercy rather than complaints.  

When God hears our cries, He does more than intervene in our crisis.  God does more than heal those sick with the coronavirus. God saves and redeems lost souls to salvation.  God restores that wayward son or daughter.  God changes lives forever.  Now is the time to become the person of prayer God saved you to be.  Spend quality time with God in prayer and be a vital part of a healing-saving movement of God

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