MAGNIFYING GOD’S GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in Your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. Do not bring Your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before You.

Psalm 143:1-2

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

One of the things I’m afraid most believers take for granted is just how very blessed they are each and every day. Life has a way of sucking us into routines that dictate how we spend our time and more often than not those routines draw into a “groundhog day” kind of existence. Each day sort of runs into the next which runs into the next and – well – you get it.

Can you relate to this? I know I can.

The real problem with allowing this to happen is that we lose the zest for daily living and the special privilege it is. We lose sight of the fact that each day is a rich blessing granted to us by the God who made us, a blessing that lavishes us with grace and mercy and love from our heavenly Father.

Perhaps the reason this happens is that we forget just how much we’re on the brink of judgment on any one day. We too readily awake into each day without giving thanks for it, as if we fully warrant the privilege to live and expect that privilege will be given to us. We forget how sinful we are at our core and how that sin automatically places us at odds with a perfectly righteous God who made us and reigns over us, a God who does not take our sin lightly, a God who does and will discipline us in order to try and get us living righteously and in accordance with His will and expectations.

As we look into the first two verses of the 143rd Psalm, we see David fully understanding his fallen sinful state as he approached God in prayer. Look at his words again:  

Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in Your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. Do not bring Your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before You.

Do we pray like this? And if we have, how often do we pray like this? I would submit to you that it should be a component of our daily prayer life with the following elements being standard:

1. We need to cry out for God’s mercy.

“Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy.”

Do we do this or do we just take God’s mercy for granted, like it is automatically given to us and so we need not ask for it?

I think it’s obvious that we should be acknowledging and giving thanks in prayer for the amazing grace, mercy, and love we receive from God. Our greatest sense of praise should be given toward these rich gifts that God freely and willingly gives us. Let’s commit today to never forget to do again.

2. We need to recognize how faithful God is to us, especially how He is there for us to help in times of need.

“In Your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief.”

No one can bring us relief from life’s difficulties like God can. We all should know this. And yet, we so often go to other worldly sources for aid, completely discounting the One who can do all things, the One who told us that nothing is impossible for Him to do. Your family and friends might help you but they will never be as devoted, faithful, and committed as God is. Let us commit today to never forget that.

3. We are all subject to God’s judgment.

“Do not bring Your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before You.”

Let me clarify something here. Those who believe and trust in Jesus Christ will ultimately not perish but rather have eternal life. Don’t read my words here to mean that we will lose our salvation. Rather, I’m saying that we can still face God’s judgment and correction before death because as David states so well, “no one is righteous” before God. We all deserve His wrath for the sinners we are.

This is why David’s words should be our words. David feared the judgment of God and rightfully so. He took God seriously and prayed that he wouldn’t be brought into judgment.

How often do we do this?

Friends, I submit to you today that if we take God’s judgment seriously as David did, knowing that we are all deserving and prone to His punishment, we would have an even stronger, magnified appreciation for the grace, mercy, and love He has given us, is giving us, and is yet to give us. Every day we don’t face His discipline is a day to be grateful. And the knowledge that sinning can bring us judgment should drive us even more toward living lives so righteous that we are above reproach.

I don’t know about you but I’m so thankful that David wrote these words for us and I pray that we will follow his lead as we frame our prayers from this day forth unto the God who ever displays the purest sense of grace, mercy, and love.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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