Mercy and Grace - Characteristics of God

Here’s another way I remember the difference, a visual from my personal life. In seminary I stayed in the Charis House. It was the one female dorm at Dallas Theological and there were 7 of us. It was a three story Tudor Style house on the edge of campus.

That year was so much fun and grace was the perfect description as 7 deteremined women from 4 different countries tackled grad school, jobs, and trying to maintain a house together that was falling apart. We had gratitude for the privlige of housing and offered kindness to one another in our struggles and time constraints. I know it’s a silly analogy but the grace I needed to survive my first year of seminary made that dormitory perfectly named. We didn’t deserve punishment, mercy was not needed. Grace was sufficient to see us through.

Mercy is deliverance from judgment. Grace is extending kindness. “Grace is a gift given to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Mercy adds the condition that they desperately need it but they deserve the exact opposite.” (Read more about Mercy by Kersley Fitzgerald at http://www.blogos.org/thetakeaway/mercy.php)

The Bible, in both the Old and New Testament, is full of examples of God’s mercifulness.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3 and James 5:11 we read that mercy belongs to God and according to Ephesians 2:4 he is rich in his mercy. We see and hear of God bestowing mercy on those who don’t deserve it, tax collectors, the man hanging on the cross beside him who he comforts with promises of paradise. Or the woman caught in adultery who, after rebuking her accusers, he simply tells to go and sin no more.

There are parables…the prodigal son, undeserving of his father’s love but a recepient of it all the same is the first that comes to mind.

The old testament tells of nations that are warned of destruction but granted mercy.

Psalm 116:5 says that “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous/Yes, our God is compassionate.”

When King David sinned directly against a commandment given him by God he said to the prophet Gad in 2 Samuel 24:14, “I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the Lord for His mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”

Because David knew his God was merciful, more merciful than any man.

Perhaps my favorite story of mercy and grace in the Old Testament is that of Jonah.

(Read How Jonah Taught Me Grace).

God saved Jonah who deliberately disobeyed Him and sent him to people who did not know God’s expectations. Listen to God’s answer when Jonah responds in anger wishing to die.

There are times I think we have forgotten that this world is filled with God’s creation. You and I are in need of God’s grace daily? His mercifulness is never ceasing, without it we would be destined to eternal seperation from Him. Yet we fill our prayers with trivia. Instead of asking that He change the hearts of our enemies we ask for shade on sunny days.

What about love? What about the message of grace? What happened to the Good News?

God’s grace is bigger than me or any sin I have ever committed. His mercy extends farther then we could ever understand. It’s bigger than anything you have or ever will do. There is nowhere, not even the depths of the ocean in the belly of a whale, that God’s mercy can not reach.

The Bible says that “ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But the good news is that God loves us. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Just as he extended His grace to Jonah’s cold heart and his mercy to Nineveh He extends it now to us.

I wonder when (not if) God calls us to step out of our comfort zone and extend mercy and grace to those we do not feel deserve it, will we remember Jonah? Will we remember the extent of God‘s mercy? Will we choose to follow in God’s footsteps, to hold fast to his characteristics and model them for the world. Because chances are if we don’t start modeling God’s compassion, His mercifulness, and His grace they may never see it.