The Mercy of God
- Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things. No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. (Isaiah 59:1–4)
God forgives us if we accept our guilt. He gives mercy only to those who have a deep desire to humbly rid themselves of sin. Many an individual feels sorry for his life, but few desire the mercy of God. Only when we bow down toward God’s holy temple, does He give mercy.
- But I, by your great mercy, will come into your house; in reverence will I bow down toward your holy temple. (Psalms 5:7)
If your one and only ambition is not to obey God, then don’t bother asking Him for mercy (Hebrews 5:9).
Many churches today falsely reassure people that they have forgiveness without even really feeling guilty. At the first sign of conviction the church rushes in with a false Jesus that whitewashes their sin and guilty conscience. We can easily demonstrate this truth with a quick glance at the Bible and what God says about you.
Regretted
Did you know that God regrets that He even made you? When God looks at you His heart fills with pain. He sees a child He wishes He never created. Imagine you gave birth to a child, raised that child, and then he turned out so bad that you regretted his conception. Indeed, your heart fills with pain every time you think of him. That is how God feels.
The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled withpain. (Genesis 6:6)
This is not an Old Testament story that only applies to those people back in Noah’s time. This lies at the root of mankind, and who we are to God’s heart. Only God’s mercy found favor in Noah enough to save mankind through the water baptism of the flood. Why did Noah find favor with God? Because Noah humbled himself and accepted God’s truth—mankind deserves judgment and is a grievous regret to God. In the following passage, Jesus reiterated this.
- “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:13–14)
David so deeply understood this need for humility that he declared himself a sinner in the womb. He cried, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalms 51:5).
Those who experience this have no trouble admitting
their need for God’s mercy. Those, however, that still think some good lies within them cannot accept the mercy of God. Although they give lip service to the acceptance of mercy, it does not come from true faith in Jesus. They, as we just read in Isaiah 59:1–4, rely on “empty arguments and speak lies” when they claim that Jesus has forgiven them. How many claim the mercy of God but are still separated from Him! For in their pride they still think they hold some value to God.
Worthless
Jesus did not die for you because you hold value to God. Rather, Jesus died for the sins of mankind because of who He is, not because of who we are. For we are all completely worthless human beings.
- As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10–18)
Let’s take a closer look at this. Unless you are willing to call God a liar, what is listed here is you. To reject any one of them, is to forfeit mercy. To allow the Holy Spirit to guide us deeper into them, is to experience God’s depth of mercy. After all, he who has been forgiven much, loves much (Luke 7:47).
- No one righteous, not even one
- No one understands
- No one seeks God
- All turned away
- All have become worthless
- No one does good, not even one
- Our talk resembles open graves
- Tongues practice deceit, covering our sinfulness
- We are full of cursing
- We are full of bitterness
- We swiftly shed blood to hurt others
- In all that we do, ruin and misery is our fruit
- We do not understand peace nor walk in the way of peace
- We simply do not fear God
We can easily see this in and out of the church. We quickly tolerate slanderers, and justify and excuse our sins and desires. The church, often known for its sinful- ness, refuses to accept their real condition.
If you desire the mercy of God then you must daily, as you pick up your cross and follow Jesus, allow the Holy Spirit to convict you of these things. Those who surrender to His will not only find the mercy of God in forgiveness, but the power of Jesus to work righteousness
in their lives. Those who, by the Holy Spirit, build upon Romans 3:10–18 every day, experience the mercy of God in fresh and ever deeper ways.
No One Good
Did you also know that you will never be good? You will never have value for your good- ness, because only one person is good. Only God, and God alone is good.
- “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.” (Mark 10:18)
To think that Jesus died for you because you hold some value to Him means you believe a lie from Satan. It is blasphemy to say that Jesus died for you because you are of value. Again, Jesus died for you because of who God is, not because of who you are. God called you valuable in His sight because He calls things that are not as though they were, (Luke 12:24, 1 Corinthians 1:28). God calls man valuable because He made him, not because of who man is, for man is all together worthless and therefore God established hell. God sends His garbage to hell. For this reason, Paul declared that he knew the depth of his wickedness, for he knew “nothing good” lived in his sinful nature!
- I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature . . . (Romans 7:18a)
Those who allow God to crucify them on a daily basis will find Jesus living in them. The good then that lives in them, is not themselves but Jesus. It is utter sin for any man, Christian or not, to have a good self-esteem. To have a good self-esteem is to have the blackened heart that demons have.
- I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
Since Jesus said that only God is good, why would we dare think or even say we have some goodness in us that makes us valuable? The only true good in us is God within us. Christians never become good; they only become empty vessels through which God can pour out His goodness.
Child of the King
“I am a child of the king,” a boast declared by profess- ing Christians, is often said with pride, especially when people find themselves confronted with the fact that God regretted making them. They feel offended by the message of the cross and lash out in self-righteousness. When we combine pride with the mercy of God, we make for ourselves a deadly mixture that will poison our relationship with Jesus, souring the mercy God grants, pridefully using Jesus this way is the same manner in which Satan used God to exalt himself.
- Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. (Ezekiel 28:17)
Simply stated, Satan looked at himself, the beauty of God within him and by looking at himself, became the Devil. Any Christian who takes the mercy of God and the goodness of Christ within them and then boasts that they are a child of the King, have value in God’s sight, or some measure of goodness, only prepares themselves for hell.
Truly we are indeed children of the King, but true children do not use the mercy of the Father to cover over wounded pride. Instead, they declare with humility their worthlessness and only by God’s mercy will Jesus Christ fill their hearts.
The Cross
- You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly por- trayed as crucified. (Galatians 3:1)
Jesus was crucified naked with every fault exposed for the world to see. Jesus hanging on the cross represents who we are, with all our sins and weaknesses laid out before our eyes. As Jesus hung on that cross, He took your place, and do you know what God did? He turned away because of who you are. God could not stand to look at Jesus because your vile self hung on that cross. This caused Jesus to cry out.
- About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)
When we sinned God forsook us, not wanting to have anything to do with us. He felt grief and pain that He made us, so He turned from us. This judgment Jesus took upon Himself and now we, if we admit in our heart of souls who we really are, can find forgiveness and mercy.
Jesus took upon Himself the wrath of God, making Himself worthless and vile for our sake.
Those who accept this truth by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit will freely give up all good self-esteem, hate their own lives, deny self, pick up their cross, and follow Jesus (John 12:25). Then they walk humbly with their God, allowing Him to show them new sins to repent of daily and how to die to themselves (Micah 6:8, John 12:24). Those who do not fully accept this forfeit the mercy of God.
Mercy
Man is less than a worm in God’s sight. According to the book of Job, man is “but a mag- got.” We can easily understand this when we consider the holiness of God compared to what we have made ourselves.
- How then can a man be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure? If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less man, who is but a maggot—a son of man, who is only a worm! (Job 25:4–6)
In fact, God referred to Jacob as, “O little worm” (Isaiah 41:14). Therefore, Jesus warned us that unless we repent of our pride, admitting in humility who we are and our need for God’s mercy, the worm in our nature will never die—even in hell. Accepting anything less than this fact demonstrates, not humility, but pride striving to bargain with God to escape the torments of hell.
- …where “their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.” (Mark 9:48)
This passage denotes our very selves that must be crucified by the power of Jesus. If you are willing to take more than a causal look at your sinfulness, rich mercy awaits you. God in His infinite love chooses to show us, the maggots called mankind, mercy. Oh, what mercy and joy that Jesus would save a worm, a maggot, a sinner like me!
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