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Mercy!

24/10/2016

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The New Testament writers often opened or closed their letters with “Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you…” (See 1 John 1:3)
We’ve looked at Grace as part of our relationship with God, and each other, now let’s discuss the concept of “Mercy”.

​“But what’s the difference between Grace and Mercy?” I hear you ask. “Aren’t they the same thing?”
They’re certainty related that’s for sure, but there’s a fine difference.

One of the many things that set us humans apart from other species is this powerful sense of Justice.
Where (or Who) did we get that from?

Justice is (ideally) getting what we deserve, or think we deserve. But that varies from government to government, and from situation to situation.
Injustice is one of the biggest problems in this world.
The struggle for perfect justice seems never ending. So we demand, and fight for our "Rights".

“Rights” are getting what we legally “deserve”, or what we’re legally entitled to at least.
It’s become a highly political thing to demand our rights: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Expression, Human Rights etc, and mostly this is based on high ideals and moral rectitude.

The only trouble is, sometimes one person’s “rights” override another person’s rights. So who’s right? The irony is, we say “That’s wrong!”

In Shakespeare’s Play “The Merchant of Venice”, Shylock, the money lender demanded his literal pound of flesh when the debtor couldn’t pay up. The judge agreed that this was Shylock’s legal entitlement, but when the creditor drew his knife, the wise judge added that he was forbidden to shed one drop of the debtor’s blood (human rights), on pain of death. Shylock, obviously alarmed, withdrew his demand. The judge then said: “Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke.”

Something sounds familiar here.
When we start demanding our “rights” or “justice” from God, we miss by a mile!
“God! I deserve better than this!”
My Goodness! Do we realize what we’re saying?

If we could see things from God’s perspective (remember, He is the only one Who has a handle on Reality) we would be too terrified to even think of such a thing!
God doesn’t owe us anything!

We make excuses for our tendency to self-centredness (“Sin”).
But God looks at our not-so-nice-guy hearts and sees what’s really going on in there. (Gulp!)

Who do we think we are to accuse God of injustice, when He created Justice and Integrity in the first place??
Ultimate justice will happen when we stand before God, the judge of the universe.
He is omniscient. He has ALL the evidence and proof of guilt before Him.

"But..but...what about the times when we’ve done noble, God-like things? We’ve done good, helped people, made sacrifices." 
All this is wonderful, but God made us that way in the first place. (See Genesis 1:27)
We’re merely acting out the way we’re supposed to be. But we have fallen from that beautiful state that God intended – by our own choices!
No matter how “nice guy” we seem on the surface, we still have this Sin principle operating inside. Then we have the gall to complain when we suffer the consequences.

Normally, we’d throw out any bad apple from the basket of good ones. We isolate and destroy any destructive microbe, pest, predator or weed to keep us safe, successful and healthy.
Yet we often refuse to do the same with our Sin.

Comparisons don’t help either i.e. “OK, I’m bad, but I’m not as bad as him.”
The trouble is...We still get thrown out as a bad apple as well as him.

We can’t blame our parents, we can’t blame our poverty, we can’t blame anyone or anything for our own choices.
So…
Not only are there consequences in this life for being out of kilter with the way the universe is run, but we will have to face ultimate justice, being accountable for everything we’ve done, said or even thought! (Gulp!!)

That means, on my own merits,  I AM GUILTY! I haven’t got a legal leg to stand on.

We have disqualified ourselves from all our supposed “rights” apart from a fair trial -- the ultimate Fair Trial. In the harsh light of Truth, we are completely stripped of any excuse or extenuating circumstances.

Like Shylock, all we can do now is fall down and beg mercy of the presiding King.

Enter the Council for the Defence!
Jesus!

He brings out a legal decree, proclaiming that the ultimate penalty has been paid – at His expense.
We are free to go. Acquitted. 
Now THAT ....is Mercy!

But…. that’s only if we decide to beg for mercy now -- in this life -- while we have the chance.
If we reject,  ignore or even just put off this golden opportunity until it’s too late, we only have ourselves to blame for the ultimate consequences.
If you haven’t already done so, PLEASE, kneel down and ask God for His mercy right now!

OK. So what’s the difference between Grace and Mercy?
Ken Malmin (Bible Temple in Portland, Oregon, USA) put it very succinctly:
  • Grace is getting what we don’t deserve.
  • Mercy is not getting what we do deserve.

But does God merely let you off legally, waves you out of His courtroom to make way for the next case, letting you wander off to struggle with life on your own? NO!

​It’s only the beginning!
More on that next time.
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Fear, Terror & Relationships

8/10/2016

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Once again, pardon the humour in the title.
​I don’t mean to imply that relationships are worse than terrifying (but some of them come close!)

We all experience fear in some form or another, but sometimes it goes from the sublime to the ridiculous.
I don’t mean to be insensitive to people who really suffer, but there have been a huge list of phobias that have developed over the years. Some of them are so close to being funny, it’s laughable!
Claustrophobia, agoraphobia, arachnophobia, acrophobia are some of the most common ones. But here’s some unusual ones from
The Phobia List:

  • Ablutophobia- Fear of washing or bathing.
  • ​Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions.
  • Anuptaphobia- Fear of staying single.
  • Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.
  • Caligynephobia- Fear of beautiful women.
  • Chrematophobia- Fear of money.
  • Consecotaleophobia- Fear of chopsticks.
  • Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia- Fear of long words. (My favourite so far.)
  • Lachanophobia- Fear of vegetables. (??!!)
  • Paraskavedekatriaphobia- Fear of Friday the 13th.
  • Pentheraphobia- Fear of mother-in-law.
You name it, there’s a phobia for it.
They can be useful, though. In politics, if anyone disagrees with you, just think up some impressive, scary-sounding phobia to brand them with. But maybe that would make us "allodoxaphobes" (refer to list above) so we’d better not. :/  :D

But seriously, fear is very real for those who experience it. We may laugh at many of these phobias listed above, but let’s not hold these fear-ers in contempt. We have our own too.
Fear can actually be as confronting as pain and suffering. Sometimes worse. It is sometimes considered as a “torment of the soul”. See 1 John 4:18.
Note, by the way, that the apostle John spoke of this in the context of fear-based religion versus a relationship with God. When we are motivated mainly out of fear of the consequences, we are not “perfected in love.” See my previous post on the “End of Wisdom”.
Yet I believe we can take the meaning of that passage further.
When I was little, and I held my Daddy’s hand, I was as bold as a lion.
When I hold my Heavenly Father’s hand, I am bold as a lion. (See Proverbs 28:1)
The trick is: learning to get a hold of our Heavenly Father’s hand in the first place. That alone can be scary for some, especially if it means turning back to God to begin with. Yet that’s how it often happens:
  1. We allow ourselves to get caught up in dodgey stuff
  2. We suffer the inevitable consequences
  3. We panic, or at least realize that the situation is way beyond our control.
  4. We renounce the dodgey stuff and run back to God.
We can see this happening in our kids, of course, but we adults are no different if we’re honest. The “dodgey stuff” merely grows with us.
Sadly, many would rather hang onto their dodgey stuff and the phobias that come with it rather than run to the only One who can help them get free.
Yet the Father is amazingly compassionate, and incredibly patient.
True, He will mostly allow us to stew in our own juice until we wake up to ourselves, but often He will pursue us -- not so much to rescue us from the consequences -- but to let us know He’s ready to grab our hand when we reach out to Him.

I know there are fears that have come from things that have happened to us, not so much from what we have done. Like I said, I don’t want to be insensitive about these things. I know that it sometimes takes years to overcome certain fears, and there’s no simplistic answer to it.
But every time God said “Fear not.” it was because “I am with you”, “I will help you” or some expression of His Fatherhood (See Isaiah 41:10.)
There have been many, many examples where people have conquered their fears by their love:
  • A young soldier conquers his fears and presses into the battle because he loves his people and his country’s freedom.
  • A young mother-to-be goes through with the pains of childbirth because she wants a little one to love, and for the love of her man.
But the best example I can think of is:
  • A 33 year old carpenter faced the fear of an agonising death, but went through with it because He loved you and me.

Please don’t be afraid to comment. :)



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