Burunche’s Blog

Matthew 5: 7 “Blessed (happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous – with life – joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions) are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy!” NKJV Amplified

As I began to research today’s Beatitude, I discovered John Piper’s excellent teaching on this. It’s long, so I have posted the reference at the bottom for anyone who wants to read Piper’s entre piece. But here are a few highlights:

 “Mercy comes from a heart that has first felt its spiritual bankruptcy. The heart has come to grieve its sin, and has learned to wait meekly for the timing of the Lord, and to cry out in hunger for the work of God’s mercy to satisfy us with the righteousness we need. The mercy that God blesses is itself the blessing of God. It grows up like fruit in a broken heart, a meek spirit, and a soul that hungers and thirsts for God to be merciful. Mercy comes from mercy. Our mercy to each other comes from God’s mercy to us.

The key to becoming a merciful person is to become a broken person. You get the power to show mercy from the real feeling in your heart that you owe everything you are and have to sheer divine mercy. Therefore, if we want to become merciful people, it is imperative that we cultivate a view of God and ourselves that helps us to say with all our heart that every joy and virtue and distress of our lives is owing to the free and undeserved mercy of God.”

Luke 6:38 states, “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” If we want to receive mercy, we must learn to be merciful. For many of us, being merciful is very difficult. Some people grow up in homes with parents whose first reactions to childish mistakes are angry ones. Many of us have found ourselves in situations where we are tempted to retaliate or to judge. Being merciful is not easy, but God can give us the strength and the ability to do what we are not able to do ourselves.

PRAYER: Father, for many of us, being merciful is not at all natural. But You are merciful to us countless times every day. Help us to accept and appreciate Your mercy so that we may also be merciful to others. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

This entry was posted on January 24, 2020 at 4:58 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.