Tag Archives: mercy

Know Your Enemy

24 Saturday Sep 2016

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Black-maned male African lion roaring, headshot, Africa

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him.” 1 Peter 5:8, 9

The enemy is very busy with today’s Christians.

Busy getting friends to turn on each other because their opposing views become offensive and that offense becomes more valuable than the love they used to have for each other.

Busy getting us to one-up each other in sarcasm and rhetoric rather than outdo each other in love, mercy, grace, and kindness.

Busy getting Christians more concerned about issues than souls, more condemning of others than forgiving, more critical of others than prayerful, more determined to make a worldly point than testify of the goodness, faithfulness, and sovereignty of the Living God.

The enemy is very busy with today’s Christians.

Busy inciting fear, hatred, violence, injustice, retaliation, bitterness, separatism, vengeance, murder, and deception in the world, and busy getting Christians to join the ranks in picking worldly sides and buy into it from a worldly perspective, while we completely ignore his handiwork from the shadows.

He’s very busy there–in the shadows, recruiting the same souls for destruction that we should be turning to the Messiah. Recruiting us to rally for a candidate or a cause rather than look with compassion on the lost. Recruiting us to redefine “the lost” and to use our own judgment for determining who’s worthy of compassion and forgiveness. Recruiting us to look at skin or uniform color rather than the soul inside. Distracting our attention away from who and what we really wrestle against.

The enemy has convinced many of us to ignore that in our anger we should not sin, that the very sins we condemn others for we ourselves commit or have committed, that those sinning against us are in need of the same grace and repentance we have been given, that we are to love our neighbors and enemies, bless those who curse us, pray for those who persecute and spitefully use us, and not resist an evil person.

The enemy is busy getting us to live like desperate citizens of a lost world rather than confident children of the Almighty God. Children who have the wisdom that is from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy, without partiality and without hypocrisy.

He’s busy getting us so angry that we become unforgiving, and in becoming unforgiving we forget how our own sins ripped through Christ’s flesh.

He is busy convincing us that God is silent. And that if God is silent we should be shouting. At the world. Not crying out to our Father. Together. United.

The enemy is very busy with today’s Christians. He is busy keeping us subjected to the influence of media and away from the instruction of God’s throne. He is busy trying to make us look and feel hostile, sarcastic, furious, forgotten, forsaken, indifferent, uncaring, hard-hearted, and hopeless. He is busy trying to make us look and act like him.

Resist him.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

 

Don’t Lose the Wonder

14 Saturday Mar 2015

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200321579-001

“Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”
~Revelation 2:4~

My kids and I walked through the parking lot looking for our car.

“Ooh, a bird!” I pointed to a cute little sparrow as it hopped out from behind a tire. My youngest looked to where I pointed, her eyes rounding in a brief second of interest, then she resumed the story she’d been telling to her older siblings. Those two barely glanced.

I frowned, remembering how fascinated all of my children used to be whenever they saw an animal. They’d tug on my sleeve, grab my face in their little hands, point, clap, and squeal. “A bird! A dog! A horse!”

Nowadays, after hundreds of dogs and thousands of birds, they’re a little less impressed.

It’s to be expected. When new things–new wonders–become the norm, we don’t get as excited about them as we used to. And that’s okay for the less important stuff.

Other things are meant to awe us for a lifetime: our children, our marriages, the grace of each new day.

More than anything, when we consider the great mystery of salvation–that this Jesus humbled Himself, left glory, became a man, served the least, and endured the Cross, all before sitting at the right hand of the Father, where He daily intercedes on behalf of His own–we should never lose the wonder, never cease to be amazed.

When His sacrifice becomes a common thing to us, so does He. He shows Himself mighty, and we barely glance.

Every bird, from the tiny sparrow in the parking lot, to the eagle soaring on high, knows its Maker. Every dawn is made new. The wind and waves obey Him. From the highest height to the lowest depth, He sees what dwells there.

He is mindful of man, slow to anger, abounding in love and kindness; and yet it is a dreadful thing to fall into His hands. He is mighty, eternal, holy, and good. We are not. And yet He died for us.

Consider daily the greatness of your first and greatest love.

And be filled with wonder.

Mercy Despised

15 Friday Aug 2014

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chains

Not too long ago I had a wrestling match with my youngest daughter, something we do quite often. This particular day I had to cut our bout short.

I trapped her legs between mine, clamped her arms to her sides and her back to my chest in a one-armed hug, and applied enough pressure so that she could accomplish little more than a wiggle.

She laughed.

“You want me to let go?” I stuck my nose in her neck to tickle-torture an affirmative out of her. After squirming just to double-check my grip, she agreed. “Okay, okay. Let me go.”

“Say ‘mercy.'”

She stiffened. Struggled a little more. Shook her head.

“You want me to let go don’t you?” Nod. “Then say ‘mercy.'” Vigorous head shaking. Then the real battle began. She flexed and pushed and strained and twisted. Breath held. Shoulders stiff. Feet jerking in short kicks.

I held on, amazed by her obstinacy. Between laughing and having to reestablish my hold (she’s a strong one), I’d repeat, “Say ‘mercy.'” And she’d respond with a firm, “No.” Her giggling petered out as she got frustrated.

She wanted me to let go. That had already been established. And she was more than willing to take my offer of mercy if it were unconditional. But a formal surrender? Too proud for that. So proud, in fact, she was willing to get deeper into bondage by struggling, rather than simply say the word “mercy” and receive freedom.

Astounding.

Of course I let her go once her “ha, ha, ha” weakened to “he, he, he” and then became “wa, wa, wa.” She’s four. Smack a kiss on that stubborn cheek and set her free.

It didn’t escape me, however, that the response to Christ by many is sadly no different from that of a pre-schooler. We despise the idea of surrender. And in doing so, despise mercy as well.

There’s bondage aplenty: spiritual, physical, financial, sexual, and too many more to name. If it exists, we splash in it, swim in it, or plunge right in to drown in it.

And if mercy is our unconditional right, if we can live like we want and spend our days how we wish, and Christ’s blood is still for the taking without us ever doing the asking, then by all means shower some mercy on us.

But ask? Surrender? Lay down our pride and open our mouths and admit, “I need You. I can’t do this on my own. I confess that You died for me. I confess You as the only way to forgiveness, the only One who can grant me eternal life, the only One who can save me.”

We’d rather stay where we are–no, descend further into the depths–in our struggle to refuse Him.

It’s a grievous irony, this fight to stay in bondage at the expense of victory which comes through surrender. This wanting to live forever but not wanting the Way, the Truth and the Life. This desire to do it all on our own.

When. We. Simply. Cannot.

The mercy of God in Christ is life. He won’t force it on us, but He is ever offering it to us. Let us not despise it.

“For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.” ~Psalm 86:5