The Discovery of Mercy

CHILDLIKE FAITH
IN JESUS' WORK ON THE CROSS
BRINGS US INTO THE ATMOSPHERE
OF HIS MERCY AND GRACE
Luke 18:17

Damage done to mercy by legalism is long in undoing. Mr. Worldly Wiseman's detour, in Bunyan’s allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress, required much correction by Evangelist. For Pilgrim it involved moving “forward” by “retracing” his steps. Inside the straight gate he came to a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulcher. (And) just as Christian came up to the cross, his burden loosed from his shoulder, and fell off his back, and tumbled until it came to the mouth of the sepulcher, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lighthearted, and said with a merry heart, “He has given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His death.”

Here is mercy discovered! If a person is not moved by such mercy he would do well to abide at the foot of this Truth: meditate on it; let it saturate his heart and mind until that “Ah Ha!” moment when he understands the force of Paul’s words when, so moved by mercy, he wrote: Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! But he did not stop there. He took the truth of mercy to the next level:

I beseech you, therefore, brothers, BY THE MERCIES OF GOD, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God which is your reasonable act of worship.

Only when this unwanted gift becomes our most treasured possession can we make sense of the words:  

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Thereis no fear in love: but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.

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