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Have Mercy! in His Word 11-10-2025
A bit of thanks giving, gratitude and mercy to pass on from this adaptation from 2005~
Thanksgiving is
coming up soon, and some people may have little that they can think of to be
thankful for. So where can we find something to thank God for? How can we find
a reason when we can’t manage to deal with the coming season?
Lets look—
In
His Word!
Oh,
give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever. Psalm
136:1
"Who
is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness,
Fearful
in praises, doing wonders? You stretched out Your right hand; the earth
swallowed them. You in Your mercy have led forth the people whom You have
redeemed; You have guided them in Your strength to Your holy habitation. Exodus 15:11-13
And
there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy
seat, from between the two cherubim, which are on the ark of the Testimony,
about everything, which I will give you in commandment to the children of
Israel. Exodus 25:22
"Therefore,
know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and
mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His
commandments; Deuteronomy 7:9
While I was growing up, my dad’s
family used to quote the first bible verse each night before supper. At that time,
it was what we said, as Americans, before we ate. We all said ‘grace’. Most of
us did not have a clue about why we would need to pray for our food. As a young
teen I thought it a bit strange to pray, or say, this before meals, and it was
never really explained to me. We just did it.
Today I look at it differently.
Today I see that it is at really cool
thing to have prayed, because it was acknowledging that God’s mercy brought
that food to the table for us. Today I can know that my God has supplied all my
needs, even when I didn’t think about it, or even know Him personally He was
taking care of me.
So, let’s think on that verse, His
Mercy endures forever, so we are to thank Him for it, as the writer of the Psalm
did.
What
is mercy?
MERCY-properly
<, che'sed, >kindness; pity), a virtue which inspires us with compassion
for others, and inclines us to assist them in their necessities- according to
Strongs and Biblesoft.
When we were still in our sins, our
God had mercy on us; He sent His son to die that we might live. Now think about
that for a moment and realize that God- the creator of all things, all
powerful, the all-mighty God, that one!
He
loved you so much; He cared for you so much that He gave up His son just for
you! Most of us would not give up our
children to save our own lives let alone someone else’s!
We love our children more than our own
lives, and we would give up our own lives for them, and many of you do daily!
You give up any hope of having fun to work and provide for your family. You
give up time, you could be lazing in front of the television to lay on the hard
floor and play cars with your child, or sit on the floor and play boardgames
with your family. You give up that time of relaxing when you have sent your
children to bed to stop and read them a bedtime story. Then you go do the dishes,
laundry, finish that report for the boss and so on…Yes I think if we think
about it, we know how to give mercy to our children in a small way.
But
God does everything in a big way!
Now put yourself in the child’s spot;
God the Father loves you enough to spend time playing with you, to read you a
bedtime story. Some of us know of this as the Bible, in fact He even had it
written just for you! He knew you would
have a lot of questions that needed answering, and just as you may read a book
to your child that deals with something you are going through, He had a book
written for you to read when you are going through something you don’t
understand. It has the answers and gives you things to think on as well as talk
to your Daddy God about.
People often have problems with
prayer. We forget how to talk to God. We neglect Him by not spending enough
time with Him in prayer. Yet, His mercy endures forever, so we receive
forgiveness and encouragement just the same.
He
tells us in Exodus 25 that He will meet with us between the wings of the
cherubim, in the MERCY seat! Okay, now I want to ask you a question; how many
times have you not stopped to pray and ask for forgiveness or encouragement
because you were afraid to? You thought God was mad at you because you had been
doing the wrong thing?
When my children get punished for being disobedient little kids they often
think, “Mommy doesn’t like me right now,” because I am upset with them for
their behaviors. Of course after we have our little talk they know that I love
them, and they find mercy in my voice.
God is the model of that mercy. He meets you and I in the mercy seat, and do
you know it was made with pure gold? Not defiled in anyway! God did not say,
“Hey Teresa you need to get your self up here and talk to Me!” Instead He tells me “I am here, full of mercy
waiting to meet with you. I will come down to your level to talk….”
M- Mercy endures forever,
E- Endurance – it’s everlasting
R- Reality is He is Real, and really
cares and His mercy shows us that.
C- Created a way for us to speak with
God on a daily basis, through Jesus Christ,
Y- Your blessing of forgiveness and
encouragement and direction comes through His Mercy!
"Therefore,
know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and
mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His
commandments; Deuteronomy 7:9
Our God will not leave us alone in our
sins, if we meet with Him. Meeting requires us to advance a little and Him to
advance as well. Then we meet in the middle. We meet with Him we thank Him and
obey His direction in our lives and we will see that His Mercy is there, has
been there with us.
If
not for God’s mercy I would be living in sin, probably alone and sad. God’s
mercy answered my prayer for someone to love; He gave me my husband, and my
children. He has given me so much mercy when I sin and realize I messed up.
Just as my children should come to me when they mess up, I bring my heart to
God and ask His forgiveness. You know what? He gives it to me every time! Every
time I do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing and crush someone else’s heart
in the process, God gives me mercy and grace. He shows me how to be like Him.
Then when someone says or does the wrong thing to me, I too can show them
mercy. And so on, and so on… you get the
picture? Our God is faithful and will
continue to be so as long as I acknowledge Him as my Lord, and even longer than
that! His mercy lasts forever, and ever!
Okay, now this week when you sit
around the table and swap what you are thankful for be thankful for God’s
mercy.
He shows His mercy every day by giving
you breath to breathe long enough to make your heart right with Him, if nothing
else that is a good thing to be thankful for.
He shows His mercy when someone cuts
you off and you don’t get in an accident. Or when you walk to the store and
find a quarter on the ground that ends up being just the amount you need for
tax to get the food for dinner you so needed. There is always something. He is
always there, working His miracles big and small. The idea is to look for the
small blessings and go from there.
After
all His Word tells us to ‘despise not the days of small beginnings…” Be blessed
today and each day and start it by thanking God for today. That is a good start
and if you think about it, I am sure you can find another thing to thank Him
for, and another, and another….
Dear
heavenly Father, thank you for today. Thank you for sunshine, for flowers, for
peace in my heart. Thank you for having children to scream and yell at one
another, even if it annoys me when they do it. Thank you that they know You!
Bless me today with your mercy… In Jesus Name. Amen
Suggested
Readings.
Monday:
Psalm 136-all
Tuesday:
Psalm 118: 1-29
Wednesday:
Proverbs 16:21-31
Thursday:
Jude 2: all
Friday:
2 John 3:1-13
Weekend Readings; 1 Peter 1&2 the whole
chapters.