Devotional Thoughts: Mercy is Free

Mercy is something we all desperately need. Without God’s mercy we would all be in the same boat headed nowhere and then to doom. Humbling ourselves and reaching out to God, praying for mercy, asking for forgiveness for our wrongs is what sets one person apart from another. The one who has experienced cleansing is free and at peace. The one who never humbled himself and hasn’t reached out to God carries his sin forever and does not have the capacity to pay for what he has done.

I’ve been told this is too good to be true, that God couldn’t possibly forgive and love just because I ask. If you’re in that place in your head I encourage you to speak these things to God, ask for clarity and see what happens. I dare you to reach out to the one who loves you most. Yes, an amount of fear for God is healthy. He is like the lion Aslan C.S. Lewis wrote about. Ferocious but also loving and just.

It’s hard to wrap our brain around who God is because there’s nothing else like God so we subconsciously believe God must be like the father we have here on earth. The best way to overcome these thoughts is to read the Bible to listen to what God says about who He is. I say He, but God really isn’t a he. That term limits God because God has no gender. We compare God to humans but God is not human. God dwelt in the body of Jesus for a time to teach is who God is.

What great love, this steadfast love that is mentioned here in this verse is amazing and gives me what I need to carry on.

When we reach out for cleansing and forgiveness, confessing our sin we experience transformation. We eventually learn that living life our own way brings destruction. Giving our lives to God, telling God my life is His and asking God to be my guide is when the Holy Spirit, that part of God that lives among us, enters in and we are never alone. Ironic that when we hand our lives over that’s how we find real strength! Strength through surrender. Walking in life with God is fun, hard, exciting and challenging but God provides all I need and God will do this for anyone who dares to reach out. I dare you! It’s dangerous! You’ll be a new creation, not the same!

Turning to things that give us an escape, numb us or take away pain for a time will eventually destroy. These things are not worth our life. These things enslave. Step away, confess, surrender and experience freedom.

Have mercy on us Oh God! Wash us! Cleanse us!