Expanding Your Horizons

Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. (ESV)

When you make a blunder that really should have you bearing the consequences, how do you feel when the person you’ve hurt, instead of criticising you, instead of punishing you, covers for your mistake?

Interesting question, isn’t it? We know we deserve what’s coming to us but instead, the aggrieved party chooses to show us mercy.

I remember, quite some years back now, when the Christians whom I’d actively persecuted – those to whom I’d deliberately been nasty – turned around and gave me somewhere to live when I was homeless. How they wept with me when I wept. How, instead of giving me my comeuppance, they gave me their compassion.

That, my friend, is called mercy. And I’m here with you today because they chose mercy over justice. No wonder Jesus said …

Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. (ESV)

It’s ever so easy for us to become complacent when the world keeps telling us what we deserve. It’s so easy to be self-entitled when others hurt our feelings. But right here, right now, Jesus is calling us – you and me – to be merciful.

And it’s amazing how, when we actively begin searching for opportunities to show mercy, our impact and influence for Christ grows; how the kingdom-building, life-transforming power of the Holy Spirit flows; how our horizons expand.

Sure, it’s easy to complain about the mess the world’s in; about the people out there doing the wrong thing, hurting us, perhaps even persecuting us.

But God’s plan is to use changed people like you and me … to change the world. What opportunities do you have to show mercy? Because … blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.