Hannah Sorenson’s Reviews > In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character > Status Update

^Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the merciful, for they have received mercy.
Blessed are the merciful, for the mercy they have received is without end.^

^Bread of the world in mercy broken,
Wine of the soul in mercy shed,
by whom the words of life were spoken,
and in whose death our sins are dead:
look on the heart by sorrow broken;
look on the tears by sinners shed;
so may your feast become the token
that by your grace our souls are fed. (Reginald Heber, 1927)^

^Because Jesus is the author, each word has been chosen and arranged with perfect intent:

"God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Note the word picture the man's statement creates. God at one end of the sentence, a sinner at the other, mercy in between.^

^This is why it makes sense that God is both faithful and just to forgive us our sin: because Christ received justice at the cross, we receive mercy. Having executed justice on Christ in our stead, God would be unjust to now withhold from us forgiveness for our sin. Mercy and justice both take their place in the narrative of our salvation.^

cont'd

But the New Testament teaches us that in Christ, we see the mercy of God demonstrated in all its lavishness: "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ" (Eph. 2:4-5).^

^Though many conceive of the God of the Old Testament as a God of towering justice, absent of mercy, the Old Testament mentions his mercy more than four times as often as the New.

^The fact that you are currently inhaling and exhaling at this very moment means that you are a recipient of mercy.^

^Justice is getting what we deserve.
Mercy is not getting what we deserve.
Grace is getting what we do not deserve.^

^We have no need to self-justify. We need only confess our sins. Self-justification reveals a lack of understanding of the forgiveness we received through the cross.^

^God’s discipline is his justice without wrath, for the purpose of training us in godliness.^