Choose Love (11 page)

Sin has consequences. That is just the way it is. No one gets away without the consequences coming to fruition sooner or later. God’s forgiveness in response to our repentance releases us from the consequences of our errors.

That’s mercy.

God’s Mercy Is Not Extended to Those Who Do Evil

Have you ever been afraid because of the evil around you? I know I have. The evil around me caused me to move out of a dangerous neighborhood into a safer one. Have you ever cried fervently before
the Lord to protect you and your family and asked Him to remove you from the path of evil? I have done that countess times. “In my distress I called upon the L
ORD
, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry came before Him, even to His ears” (Psalm 18:6).

David said, “The pangs of death surrounded me, and the floods of ungodliness made me afraid” (Psalm 18:4). After his prayer was answered, he said of God, “He sent from above, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy
, from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but
the L
ORD
was my support.
He also brought me out into a broad place;
He delivered me because He delighted in me
” (Psalm 18:16-19).

Is that not the mercy of God?

That is what I believe God did for me and my family after I prayed for Him to move us to a safer place.

Evil people don’t fear God
. They are full of deceit and have no wisdom. They think about planning and doing wicked things day and night. They are never horrified by evil. In fact, they think highly of themselves when they do wrong.

David said of the wicked, “
There is no fear of God before his eyes
. For he
flatters himself in his own eyes
, when he finds out his iniquity and when he hates. The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit;
he has ceased to be wise
and to do good. He devises wickedness on his bed; he sets himself in a way that is not good; he does not abhor evil” (Psalm 36:1-4).

God protects us when we make Him the safe place we turn to
.

When David fled from Saul, he prayed, “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in
the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by
” (Psalm 57:1).

David put his hope in God’s mercy, and God protected him.

David said to God,
“You have delivered my soul from death. Have
You not kept my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?
” (Psalm 56:13).

If it is not our time to go, God keeps us from death. The psalmist said with faith in God’s love and mercy, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the L
ORD
. The L
ORD
has chastened me severely, but He has not given me over to death” (Psalm 118:17-18).

God’s Mercy Helps Us Do What We Cannot Do on Our Own

When my children were small, they knew they would have certain privileges if they strictly obeyed the family rules. One of those rewards was going to a nice restaurant with us. My husband and I didn’t have babysitters or family members around to take care of them for a few hours, and I wouldn’t leave them with anyone unless I knew them well and completely trusted them.

Of course, we didn’t take them out to nice restaurants if they were under the age of three—when they were still
all zeal and no wisdom
. But at three years old they knew their manners, especially toward the people serving us and other people around them in the restaurant. We were not about to inflict misbehaving children on others, and our kids were wise enough to know that.

Both children knew in advance that this night would be
all judgment and no mercy
if they misbehaved—at least for those 90 minutes. As a result of knowing that, they were perfect in their manners and soft spoken and mature in their conduct. They behaved because they wanted the privilege of going with us and eating the great food they loved so much.

Many times a person or a couple in the restaurant would come over to our table to comment on how well mannered our children were and how pleasantly surprised they were when our children conducted themselves more quietly and politely than many of the other adults there. They felt they had to say thank you.

God’s mercy toward us, on the other hand, doesn’t require us
to be perfect in our behavior. That’s why it is called mercy. It’s His compassion toward us. Because He loves us He helps us to do the right thing. He helps us to do beyond what we can do on our own.

God’s mercy is not a “get out of jail free” card that allows us to keep on disobeying His laws. There are consequences for violating God’s laws, just as there are consequences for breaking the laws of a country. If there are no consequences, then there is either corruption in the system or there really are no laws. But if laws are upheld, the system is good.

God expects us to uphold His laws, and there are consequences when we don’t. But He mercifully will help us to live His way when we ask Him to do so.

David said that the
faces of those who look to the Lord are radiant and unashamed
(Psalm 34:5). That is the same for the faces of children who are raised with guidance, godly discipline, and the love and mercy of the Lord. You can always tell the children whose parents love them enough to teach them what they need to know. Their faces reveal it.

God shows His great love and mercy in times of trouble
. We have no idea how many times He has saved us from danger or death. “
The eye of the L
ORD
is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy
, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine” (Psalm 33:18-19).

The best part about His goodness and mercy is that it allows you to dwell with Him forever. Jesus has prepared a place for you in eternity with Him where there is no disease, no crime, no evil, no sorrow, no fear, and no tears—once He wipes away all of yours, of course.

In the book of Revelation, John talks about what he saw regarding the end times. He said, “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held” (Revelation 6:9). We wonder,
Why does God allow
those who love and serve Him to be murdered?
But we don’t see the great reward waiting for them in heaven.

These are the people who had been killed because they were Christians and stood up for God, His Word, and their faith. They—the martyrs—were asking God how long it would be until He avenged their blood. They wanted God’s justice to prevail.

God told them to rest a while longer until the remainder of those who would also be killed for their faith was fulfilled. There were going to be more who would be martyred, and apparently God was giving the perpetrators time to repent.

I don’t know about you, but if it were up to me, I would immediately strike the people who killed my children with death, and certainly they would have no future in heaven. But not God. He is too merciful and loving for that. He loves us even when we sin against Him—even to the point of allowing them to destroy His most loyal servants and ardent believers, His beloved children who served Him faithfully to the end.

God loves us enough to wait for us to turn to Him so He can mercifully enable us to do what we cannot do on our own. That is, spend eternity with Him in heaven.

His grace and mercy are that deep.

He loves us that much.

Prayer of Love

L
ORD
, thank You for Your grace and mercy, which I know are never-ending signs of Your unfailing love for me. They are gifts beyond comprehension. For it is You who redeems my life from destruction and crowns me “with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (Psalm 103:4). Thank You, Lord, that You “will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O L
ORD
, endures forever” (Psalm 138:8). Thank You that You care about the things I care about.

Thank You for Your forgiveness. I can’t imagine the condition of my life and the state of my soul without it. I know that guilt is a killer and condemnation destroys. I am forever grateful that when I recognize my own error and bad choices that have led me to stray from Your ways, I can come to You with a humble and repentant heart and You not only will forgive me, but You remove my transgressions as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). “Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; according to Your mercy remember me, for Your goodness’ sake, O L
ORD
” (Psalm 25:7).

Thank You for Your grace that drew me to put my faith in You and allowed me to be saved from death and eternity without You. Thank You that Your grace is the great manifestation of Your love for me, and Your mercy keeps me from being punished as I deserve. Help me to keep myself in Your love, dwelling in the flow of Your mercy, even into heaven with You after I leave this earth (Jude 1:21).

In Jesus’ name I pray.

Words of Love

By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.

E
PHESIANS
2:8

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

H
EBREWS
4:16

The L
ORD
takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.

P
SALM
147:11

As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

P
SALM
103:11-12.

God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

E
PHESIANS
2:4-6

6

Recognize the Ways God Loves You

L
ove is like a vapor.

We can’t see a vapor, but we can sometimes sense the effects of it. For example, we can’t see a gasoline vapor until it’s ignited by a spark. Then we can definitely observe the effects of that. We don’t see airwaves, but we recognize the manifestations of them when our cell phone rings or we turn on the radio. The more we learn about vapors and airwaves, the more we recognize that they are all around us.

The same is true about God’s love. It’s all around us, and He shows His love for us in countless ways, but often we don’t see the manifestations of His love until He opens our eyes to them. It all begins when we receive the Lord. That turns on the receptors in our brain, heart, and spirit. Then, with each new recognition, there comes a burst of joy in us that is set off by our understanding of what has been there all along but we could not see it until that moment.

When we finally understand things about God’s love that we have never before imagined, it is like an explosion in our heart detonated by the signs of it everywhere we look. We see it in His beautiful creation around us. We feel it in His grace and mercy extended to us. We recognize it in the things that happen for good in our life. His loving presence cannot be missed.

Even after our understanding of God’s love for us is ignited, it will continue to explode in our heart like a blast to our senses every day, and each time it will touch us more deeply than the day before.

If you have never felt that, ask God to reveal the ways He shows His love to you. Even if you
have
felt His love in the past, ask Him to show you in new ways now. There is always more to learn and experience concerning God’s love for you. Has He given you family, friends, relationships, healing, health, work, sun, and rain? I used to not appreciate rain until I was in a drought. Now every time it rains I praise God. I am not insensitive to those who have been in damaging floods, but even then, during frightening times when the forces of nature remind us how small and powerless we really are, God’s love can still be seen in the way He protects us or provides for us.
There are so many things we do not appreciate in our life until we recognize God’s love for us in them
.