“I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?” (Matthew 18:32b-33)
“She was rolling her eyes at me!”
“He hit me!”
“He wouldn’t share his cookies with me!”
The same boys and girls who had been quietly listening to a Bible lesson only minutes before were now filling the air with angry shouts. What had the Bible club leader just said?
“God is merciful. He sent Jesus to die for us when we were still sinners. He did that so that we could be saved from all of our sins. He promises to forgive our sins when we come to Jesus.”
Forgiveness. Love. Salvation from sin. God offers us all of these things freely. There is nothing we could ever do to earn our salvation. We could never deserve forgiveness and love. What if God had thought only about how much we had hurt Him by our sin? What if He had not returned love and kindness for our hatred and rebellion? We are saved only because God has been merciful to us. (See Titus 3:5.)
Since God has been merciful to us, how do you think He wants us to treat others? He wants us to treat them just as He has treated us–with mercy. Mercy reaches out to others with compassion, with forgiveness, with love. Mercy means not returning evil for evil. Mercy means refusing to roll our eyes back, hit back, or be unkind back. Mercy means forgiving. Mercy means thinking about someone’s needs rather about how that person hurt us. Mercy means treating others as God has treated us.
God is merciful, and He wants us to show mercy to others.
My Response:
» Am I treating others in the same way God has treated me?
» Do I see others’ needs, or do I only see how they hurt me?