Mercy Begets Mercy

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”  Matthew 5:7

According to Mr. Webster, mercy is “a refraining from harming or punishing offenders, enemies, persons in one’s power, etc.; kindness in excess of what may be expected or demanded by fairness; forbearance and compassion.”  That is quite a definition.  It goes from withholding deserved punishment to being overly generous to someone to overlooking another’s faults.  Mercy is forgiving and treating others with kindness, not expecting anything in return.  One of my former pastors said that a Christian does not have the right to be unkind.  Colossians 3:12 tells us to, “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering.”  The King James Version, which was published over 400 years ago, used the language of the day.  “Bowels” means “the inner man, the heart” and “the seat of tenderness and compassion” (Ungers Bible Dictionary).

Now that we have the definition of mercy down, how do we extend mercy, particularly to someone whom we don’t think deserves mercy?  Having mercy upon another is not just feeling sorry for someone.  Feeling sorry is just sympathy or having pity for someone’s situation but not necessarily responding in a helpful or meaningful way.  Mercy is an action word.  It can be either doing something which helps another person in some way or in not doing something which would be retaliating against another even if we think it is justified.  God would have been perfectly justified in not providing salvation to all of us sinners and let us all end up in Satan’s hell, but because of God’s mercy and love, He sent Jesus to take our punishment, keeping us out of the fiery pit and making it possible to spend eternity in paradise.

Jesus told a story in Matthew 18:23-35 about a servant who owed his employer, a king, a huge sum of money.  The servant threw himself on the mercy of the king who did have mercy on him and forgave him the debt.  You would think this servant would be so grateful that he would exhibit the same merciful attitude as the king.  But not so.  He went out purposely to find a man who owed him a very small amount in comparison, not to forgive his debtor, but to threaten him by force to pay his debt.  His debtor did the same thing that the servant did before the king, he begged for mercy.  However, the servant had no mercy on him and had him thrown into prison until he paid the debt.  There was no way he could ever pay his debit while in prison.  Therefore, he received a life sentence.  Other servants who witnessed this event told the king what had transpired.  The king was very angry with this unmerciful servant.  The king expected him to have the same compassion that the king had shown to him.  But this servant’s heart was full of greed and ingratitude, and he had no desire to be like his master.  The king reversed his merciful decision and had the servant given over to tormentors until he paid all that he owed–again, a life sentence.

There are small ways in which we can not only show kindness to others, but mercy, as well.  We can let others go ahead of us in the grocery store checkout.  That has happened to me many times when I just had two or three items, and I have paid it forward to let others go ahead of me.  Just the other day at Walmart, I had about three items in my arms, and a lady volunteered her buggy.  I thanked her and told her I didn’t need a buggy.  I told her that carrying items was a good way to not buy too much!  Putting the shopping cart in the cart corral is also a merciful action so that the buggy doesn’t roll into someone’s car and damage it.  Any way that we can find some small thing that will make life easier for others, even if it inconveniences us, is an act of mercy.  These are just simple things that do not require a big effort, but there are other things that do require a bigger effort, things that can cost us time, energy, and money.  For example, someone borrows a tool and when he returns it, it is damaged.  The one who has mercy will say, “Don’t worry about it” rather than “You owe me 20 dollars”.  Perhaps someone spills coffee on your new sofa.  I will admit that sometimes it is difficult to “grin and bear it” but flying off the handle at things is not very Christlike.

This thing about being merciful goes back to the Golden Rule:  “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31).  The main purpose in displaying mercy is to be like Jesus.  We know that everyone to whom we give mercy may not necessarily be merciful to us in some future situation.  However, while we do want others to extend mercy to us, it is not so much the mercy from other humans that we desire, but it is the mercy of God of which we need.  Just remember that grace is God’s giving us what we don’t deserve; mercy is His not giving us what we do deserve.