God “is” “Merciful”. “Is” meaning ; “existing in this moment of time“, and “the substance, characteristics, and/or character of a thing”. God “is” a “right now”, “in this moment” God; alive, active and available to us. His “substance”, “characteristics”, and “character” is “Merciful”.But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is,…..” Hebrews 11:6
Exodus 34:4-7 (NKJV)
“…Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him; and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone. Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,….”
The Lord “proclaimed” his name to Moses, and in doing so, He declared some of the “attributes” of His name; one of them was “merciful”. God’s mercy proceeds from the compelling quality of His unconditional love.
A very simple definition of “mercy”, that I have heard many times, is; “not getting what you deserve”. This definition was usually coupled with a simple definition of “grace” as; “getting something you don’t deserve.” Consequently, “mercy” would precede “grace”; for example, we receive “mercy” from God when He doesn’t issue our deserved punishment for sin, and after He has been “merciful” to us, He extends “grace”, forgiveness and eternal life which we do not deserve. There are more ramifications to “mercy” and “grace”, but these basic ideas will suffice for now.
It is important for us to comprehend that one of the qualities of the unconditional love of God is to move Him toward being “merciful”, extending His compassion and grace to us when we do not deserve it. Therefore, when we are feeling “down-in-the-dumps” and unworthy of God’s love, we must “throw ourselves” upon His “mercy”; that is what we do when we confess our sin to Him. 1 John 1:9 says that when we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin (have mercy on us, not giving us the punishment we deserve) and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (grant us grace, which we don’t deserve).
In Hebrews 2:17, Jesus is called a “merciful” and faithful High Priest, and Hebrews 4:16 tells us: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16 NKJV)
He “is” a “God of mercy”! When we are feeling bad and undeserving of His love, we need to “run to Him” instead of away from Him, trusting in the mercy that is born out of His unconditional love for us.
Our concept of His “isness”; the manner in which we define His nature, substance, characteristics, and character, and the way we “receive” His “isness” into our life and depend on (have faith in) it, will be the role that we “anticipate/expect” or “will allow” God to play in our lives.
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is,…..” God “is” “Merciful”.
*** Fred Wilson *** is an author, former coach, teacher and Life and Liberty News Contributor.
