SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/8/2020
10:03 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Source of Mercy”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 5:7
Message of the
verse: “’Happy
are the merciful, for they will have mercy shown to them!’”
I don’t think anyone would be surprised
if I tell you that “pure mercy” is a gift of God as it is not a natural attribute
of man as this gift comes from the new birth.
The only way that we can be merciful in its full sense and with a
righteous motive is when we have experienced God’s mercy. MacArthur adds “Mercy is only for those who
through grace and divine power have met the requirements of the first four
beatitudes. It is only for those who by
the work of the Holy Spirit bow humbly before God in poverty of spirit, who
mourn over and turn from their sin, who are meek and submissive to His control,
and who hunger and thirst above all else for righteousness. The way of mercy is the way of humility,
repentance, surrender, and holiness.”
An example that we surely do not
want to follow comes from Numbers 23:10 “"Who can count the dust of Jacob,
Or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the upright, And let my end be like his!" Balaam is the one speaking here and we want
to focus in on the last part of the verse to understand what a Puritan
commentator observed from this statement as he observed that “Balaam wanted to
die like the righteous, but he did not want to live like the righteous. Many people want God’s mercy but not on God’s
terms.”
It was a few SD’s before this one
that I wrote about a story of the Triune God getting together before the angels
and the world were created. I wish now
to quote from MacArthur’s commentary that seems to go along with that
story: “God has both absolute and
relative attributes. His absolute
attributes—such as love, truth, and holiness—have characterized Him from all
eternity. They were characteristic of
Him before He created angels, or the world, or man. But His relative attributes—such as mercy,
justice, and grace—were not expressed until His creatures came into being. In fact they were not manifest until man, the
creature made in His image, sinned and became separated from his Creator. Apart from sin and evil, mercy, justice, and
grace have no meaning.
“When man fell, God’s love was
extended to His fallen creatures in mercy.
And only when they received His mercy can they reflect His mercy. God is the source of mercy. ‘For as high as the heavens are above the
earth, so great is His lovingkindness (mercy) toward those who fear Him’ (Ps.
103:11). It is because we have the
resource of God’s mercy that Jesus commanded, ‘Be merciful, just as your Father
is merciful’ (Luke 6:36).”
Now we will look at a quote from
Donald Barnhouse who writes:
“When Jesus Christ died on the cross, all the work of God for man’s
salvation passed out of the realm of prophecy and became historical fact. God has now had mercy upon us. For anyone to pray, ‘God have mercy on me’ is
the equivalent of asking Him to repeat the sacrifice of Christ. All the mercy that God ever will have on man
He has already had, when Christ died.
That is the totality of mercy.
There could not be any more…The fountain is now opened, and it is
flowing, and it continues to flow freely.”
(This quotation comes from Barnhouse’s commentary on Romans written in
1983.)
There is no way that we can have the
blessing of mercy apart from the Blesser, it just cannot happen any other
way. There is no way that we can even
meet the condition apart from the One who has set the condition. God blesses us when we are merciful to
others, and we are able to be merciful to others because we have already received
the mercy that came from salvation we received from God, so see it is all about
God. When we share the mercy that we
have received we “shall receive mercy” even beyond what we already have.
MacArthur concludes this section by
writing “We never sing more truthfully than when we sing, ‘Mercy there was
great and grace was free; pardon thee was multiplied to me; there my burdened
soul found liberty, at Calvary.’”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: The more
that I study the Bible the more that I realize that it is all about God and His
glory, that I can do nothing without His Spirit working in me to do the things
that God has planned for me to do, and that makes me just the hose that the
water flows through me through the power of the Holy Spirit.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to
seek contentment, humility and joy as I study His Word each day, and to, by His
grace show mercy to others.
5/8/2020 10:45 AM
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