New Mercies

“Because of the LORD’s faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end.  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3:22-23

This verse is one of the reasons why I enjoy doing Bible study in the morning, preferably as the sun comes up to escort in another day.  Every morning, God’s infinite mercies are new.  With the dawn of each day, I get another opportunity to put the Christian walk into practice.  Each day I get a fresh supply of mercies from God’s endless stock.

Additionally, today’s mercies are for today’s troubles.  They are not for yesterday’s woes, nor for tomorrow’s trials.  God asks us to abide with Him daily.  If He supplied us with tomorrow’s mercies, we wouldn’t come to Him.  We would try to be self-sufficient, tell God we had this under control now and He could focus on bigger problems that needed His attention.  God doesn’t want that.  He desires a relationship with us because He loves us, not us growing up to be independent of Him.  He is big enough to tend to the bigger problems in the world and smallest of details with us.  So He only supplies us with enough mercy for one day.  We have to trust Him and believe His promise that He will be faithful.

Why is mercy important?  What does it mean?  Mercy in the Hebrew is racham which means “mercy, to have compassion, womb, bowels, pity, tender love.”  Mercy is an act of compassion.  Compassion is “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.”  We have been stricken by sin and live in a fallen world.  Suffering is unavoidable.  No matter how strong your Christian walk you will experience suffering along the way.

However, as children of the Most High God we can know that the One who is in control has such tender love for us that He is moved deeply to the inner essence of His being and has a strong desire to alleviate our suffering.  So He extends to us mercy.  We may deserve to reap the consequences of our sin, but He extends to us His mercy.  What a relief that God forgives us when we fail Him and doesn’t hold it against us!

In Matthew 18:21-35, Peter asked Jesus how many times shall he forgive his brother when he sins against him.  Jesus answered by telling him the parable of the merciless servant.  A king wanted to settle accounts with his servants.  One servant owed a king ten thousand talents, but could not pay.  The master ordered that he, his wife, his children, and all he had be sold to repay the debt.  The servant fell on his knees saying, “Be patient with me and I will pay back everything.”  The master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go.

However the servant went out and prosecuted another servant who owed him a smaller debt.  He didn’t extend the same mercy that he had received.  He only extended judgment.  He had begged the king to be patient with him, and the king was patient so he could extend mercy and forgive the servant’s debt.

Mercy, patience, and forgiveness all go together.  Mercy fuels patience.  When we remember that we have received so much mercy and had a debt we can never repay, we are filled with gratefulness and the knowledge that we need to be patient with others. This is how we are able to not let others behavior and attitudes ruin our day.  We release frustration and can be patient with them.  We pray for them as they continue on their journey to conform to the image of Christ or simply be more like Jesus.

One question I ask myself is “In light of eternity and standing in God’s throne room, how much does this matter into the balance holding people accountable so they can grow more like Christ and their need for mercy and compassion extended to them?”  We may have a right to be mad and right to avenge how we have been wronged.  But if bitterness grows in our hearts by us holding their wrongs against them, then we lose and the evil one wins.  Harboring unforgiveness is like drinking the poison ourselves and hoping to punish the other person.  Remember God want to reveal Himself through us, not through us standing up for our rights and playing judge.

So my friend, is there anyone that you need to extend mercy?  Or have you forgotten much you need the mercy of God?  Let’s spend some time praising Him and reflecting on the great mercy and compassion of God.

Pray with me:  Lord, we praise You!  Thank You that Your mercies are new every morning.  You use our hard lessons of yesterday so we will learn how to be more like Your Son while giving us fresh mercy and compassion.  Thank You for being the perfect parent who is not preparing us to grow up and be independent of You, but prepares us to come home to live with you forever.

Don’t let us give the enemy a doorway for him to take advantage of us.  Prick our hearts about who we need to extend mercy and forgive.  Imprint in our minds that our forgiveness doesn’t have the same power as Yours to absolve people from sins.  In Jesus’ mighty and wonderful Name, we pray.  Amen.

New

New

“You have heard these things; look at them all. Will you not admit them? ‘From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you.’ ”

Isaiah 48:6

At the end of last year, God said one word to me over and over. He asked me to meditate on this one little three letter word, “new.” In Isaiah 48:6, God says that He will tell the people new things, things that were never done, nor seen before, things that were unknown to them. Then He showed me some wonderful things. I felt His presence over the message that He gave me. I knew this was His message to me and to His bride for this year. I’m so excited to share it with you.

He brought to my mind some other Scriptures with the word “new” in them. The book of Ecclesiastes is fascinating as Solomon discusses the meaning of life as well as the meaningless things in life. In Ecc. 1:9, he says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Essentially, he was saying it has all been done before. Things may take different forms, be packaged differently, or the names changed, but there really isn’t anything new.

Now let’s contrast this with some of God’s final words in the King James Version of Revelation 21:5, “Behold, I make all things new.” Oh, my! I can’t help but say that with a bit of power in my voice mixed with some authority. You see, God isn’t under the sun. He is over the sun! He created the sun that bows down to Him. He can change the rules of this world any time He wants to. If He wants to create all new rules, He can. If He wants to do things differently, He can. If He wants to paint the world purple with pink polka dots, He can. If He wants us to inhabit Pluto, a comet, or the bottom of the ocean floor, He can. He can completely change the order of life into anything He desires. Nothing is restricted from the One who can make anything new.

However, God doesn’t go with the latest fad or His most recent whim. He is methodical. He is always true to His character. He never changes. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He doesn’t change His mind, make corrections to His plans, or come up with new ideas. What wonderful assurance we have that our God’s character remains a solid Rock on which we can rely! We can allow our desire for exploits and escapades to be released to discover the God Most High, the Lover of our Soul who is for us and not against us because He is always true to His perfect character!

Many of us have practiced the same level of relationship with God for many years. We are committed to it. We would say it is the best part of our lives. We may have a quiet time and prayer time with Him that is consistent, same time, same place, every day. However, the problem is that we have not let Him show us anything new in quite some time. We have not given the Holy Spirit full freedom to reveal more of the Father to us. Somewhere along the way, we stopped letting the veils of heaven be removed and getting glimpses of our God who can take our breath away! We stopped longing for the mysteries of who God is to be revealed to us. Perhaps we have begun to think that this is all that we get of God on this side of heaven. Perhaps it is because we look as spiritually strong as the others in our generation instead of dreaming that God wants to raise up people in this generation who are stronger than any other generation in history because we believe Him! We started taking ordinary, maybe even baby, steps in our walk of faith instead of leaping off the cliff into the unknown with God.

I want you and me just to try something for one year. Let’s ask God every day, “Show me something new about You, Lord.” I believe God wants His bride to boldly ask Him for new things this year. I believe God’s Spirit is being poured out in a time like no other. We will see new things happen that have never before happened. As the spiritual warfare increases, so increases God’s anointing on His people. He is looking for His people to believe Him that new things are being handed out on the kingdom calendar. I believe this year that for those of us who are in tune with His heart and the times that we will see spiritual growth unlike any other time in our lives. The door is wide open to even more things happening that are beyond what we can ask or imagine. New things will be done this year unlike any other time. Are you willing to participate? If so, join me on your knees, and let’s cry out to God together!

Pray with me: Oh, Lord, show us something new about You. We want to know unknown things. Reveal to us hidden things. Tell us of new things. We have barely tapped into the knowledge of who You are. You are more majestic than we can imagine. You are more willing than we understand. You are bigger than our minds can handle. However, we just ask for more times to have glimpses of who You truly are. We want the veil of heaven just to be pulled back a little bit more so You can break through in our lives. We don’t want the same old relationship with You but a deeper relationship where we learn new things about You. You are a mystery to us; yet, we are assured and confident in Your character. We need this security in this relationship. It allows us to take the leap off the cliff with You into the unknown, into things never experienced by any other person. So help us to not be committed to life as we know it but to be committed to following You, the Giver of life, and life more abundant! It is in the mighty Name of Your Son Jesus, Yeshua, that we pray. Amen.

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