One attribute shown to us by God is mercy. We sing about it, read scriptures about it, and hear sermons about it. But do we really understand what mercy is?

According to the Oxford language dictionary mercy is compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm. Prior to looking this up today, I had not really thought about what mercy truly is.  After reading the definition my thought was wow! Mercy is getting compassion and forgiveness, instead of harm or punishment. This is a very real picture of what God has done for us.

It says in Psalms 14 that the Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there is any who understands, or who seek after God. “They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, no not one!” According to scripture mankind is corrupt and unrighteous. We are absolutely lost. We are deserving of punishment and eternal damnation because of it.  In Jeremiah 17 verse 9 through 10 it says, “The heart is a deceitful, corrupt thing, and desperately wicked!” That’s why we deserve punishment because we’re not good, not at the heart of man and that’s what matters. Essentially, we are all unrighteous. 

I’ve said it before, this is not a very flattering way to view mankind but if we are honest with ourselves, we know it’s true. The source of so much evil and depravity is within mankind not without. We are truly lost without God.

Yet equally true to how corrupt and deserving of punishment we are, is the truth that God is all powerful. He is the one in authority over it all. In Job it talks of all God did by his power. Things such as stretching out the sky, creating the horizon, calming the sea, and making the heavens beautiful. Basically he did and has seen things beyond what we can even imagine or conceive. He is truly an Almighty God. He is the one who gives authority to all as it says in Romans 13 verse one ”For all authority has been placed there by God.” In Romans 1 it declares that through everything God made we can clearly see his invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and all powerful. There is truly no other God beside him. So, it should be apparent that he has the ability and the authority, even the right to punish us if he so desired. He could easily harm us. It is within his power to punish us and not forgive us. To withhold mercy.

But is that what he’s chosen to do? If we are broken and unrighteous and he is all powerful and holy, his posture toward us should be anything but mercy. Yet he chooses mercy. Time and again he offers mercy freely though we’re undeserving. In Psalms 103 we see him demonstrating his mercy. ”The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquity.” In the New Testament it says in Ephesians 2 verses 4 and 5 ”but God who is rich in mercy, out of great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved.” So, because of his great mercy, given out of his love for us, he has shown us grace which is undeserved favor. He doesn’t punish us or harm us, which our actions deserve, but instead he forgives us and gives us grace. Amazing mercy! Not just Amazing Grace.  Wow, this freely given out of his own great love.

If we look deeper, we see a place where he offered mercy to his people in scripture. In the temple there was a mercy seat. It was a place of transference of sin for forgiveness, a place of reconciliation between God and man. (Exodus 25:10-22). It was the cover that was made for the ark of the covenant, the atonement cover. This was the place that God told Moses he would communicate with Moses passing on the laws for Israel. The place where the atonement sacrifices were made, and mercy was offered to the people of Israel.

No, there is no longer a literal temple on earth that we are required to worship at or go to. There is a mercy seat though still for us. There is a place, although not set or literal, but a place of transference of forgiveness of sins. This is the place of mercy, where we are reconciled with God as our father.

You see, knowing what mercy is, understanding how it was offered, and what it means for us will transform our lives if we get a hold of it. It will free us! 

We will never be perfect in this life, and his mercy will always be there to forgive us and that same mercy will transform us and bring us back into connection with the Savior of our soul. Don’t just lean on God’s grace and thank him for his Amazing Grace. Remember, his marvelous mercy that forgives us instead of harming us and that reconnects us to him again. The mercy that doesn’t leave us separated from a God who we can never be worthy of, but instead brings us back into union with our Savior. So today, bow your heart at the mercy seat of God and receive it, his amazing mercy, which is meant for you!