You Delight in Showing Mercy
“Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities.You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Micah 7:18-19
I’m so grateful for the Lord’s mercy! He does NOT give us what we deserve. We deserve hell. He gives us Heaven. We deserve punishment. He gives us mercy. We deserve penance. He gives us grace. We deserve death. He gives us life.
Tuesday, Paul shared during our prayer time from the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6. Together we pondered the section that talks about forgiveness. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
Sometimes it is hard to forgive those that have hurt us or sinned against us. We want to hold it over there heads for a little bit. We find some morbid satisfaction in punishing them for what they did. We may even feel justified in that punishment – that they don’t deserve to be forgiven or free from it.
But what if God treated us like we want to treat others? What if He punished us for our sins? What if He let us stew about it and sit in our filthiness and wretchedness? What if He let us die in that state of unforgiveness? What if He chose not to forgive us?
We expect God to forgive us and show us mercy instantly. How can we do any less. Matthew 6:14,15 states: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
At times it has been hard to forgive. When I went through my divorce, I had to choose moment by moment to forgive. I would repeat out loud “I CHOOSE TO FORGIVE” over and over. I had to hear myself speak the word so I could learn to believe and live it out.
Little by little that choice became my action and I began to walk it out in my interactions with those that hurt me. I began to truly walk in forgiveness and choose not to remember it any more. It was a choice I made – moment by moment, day by day, month by month. When the thoughts come back to me, even today, I speak out “I choose to forgive.”
I love that God chooses to forgive and to not remember my sins any more. He chooses to remove them from me as far as the East is from the West. He buries them in His sea of forgetfulness. It is a conscious choice He makes because He delights in showing mercy to me! He delights in me!
Who do you need to choose to forgive? Who do you need to show mercy towards today? Each day is a choice. Choose wisely! Choose mercy! Walk into freedom!
“Mercy there was great and grace was free. Pardon there was multiplied to me. There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary.”
