God Goals: Love Mercy
From Livestream
by Pastor Nave on January 14, 2018
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:7–8, KJV).
At the start of the year, a lot of our goal-setting centers around relationships. We are all aware that relationships are hard and full of conflict. If we look back to creation, in the second generation of mankind, murder was introduced into relationships. Problems have existed in relationships ever since.
God is not surprised our relationships are a mess. There are thousands of Scriptures providing guidance to our relationships with other people. This is primarily why we try to make resolutions to try to fix them over the course of the year. But, no matter how hard we try to right our relationships, they will never be as good as we want the to be or as good as God wants them to be. The reason: our flesh.
The second aspect of our goal-setting should be to love mercy. Mercy is unfailing love. In the world, we deal with love that fails, but this doesn’t fit into God’s definition of love. Unfailing love is based on a covenant relationship: loving no matter what. Jesus’ relationship with humanity is a covenant relationship because He chose to love us knowing the sinful lives we would live. He has unfailing love for us.
God didn’t extend mercy and love to us because we loved Him first. While we were sinners, Christ died for us—He showed us the ultimate act of mercy when we were at our worst (Romans 5:7–8). Jesus still faced the cross when He knew we would fail Him and forsake Him.
True mercy comes afresh daily. God’s mercy never runs out and is always extended to us. Scripture tells us that God’s compassions fail not and they are freshly available each day we serve Him (Lamentations 3:22–23).
The opposite of mercy is judgment. When we seek after judgment, it will always leave a mess behind it. We cannot rule any relationship in judgment; mercy must triumph over it (James 2:13). Every circumstance we baptize with mercy will succeed. If we don’t extend mercy to others, we cannot be a recipient of God’s mercy in our life (Luke 6:37).
The greatest obstacle to loving mercy in relationships is us. The idol of “I” will always destroy our relationships. Everything is rooted in our flesh, but instead, our relationships, although being about us, need to be for God. An idol in our relationships can be anything—who’s right or wrong, who’s responsible for hurting us, etc.
Jesus can spot idols in our hearts a mile away. In Scripture, there was a rich, young ruler who thought he had his life in order and was following after Scripture. However, Jesus found one issue—he loved his possessions more than anything (Matthew 19:21); he had an idol in his heart. No one saw it but Jesus, but he was making something important that wasn’t important. We can be trying to do something right, but be right in the middle of disobedience. Loving mercy allows God to speak to things that aren’t right in our lives.
The love of God can be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. We must be born again by the water and the Spirit, and if we are, the love of God will continue to come forth in our life. The Holy Ghost will help us love mercy and seek after them in our lives.
