What is mercy? Mercy can be described as compassionate treatment especially of those under one’s power, kind and compassionate treatment of an offender, enemy, prisoner or any other under your authority, clemency, a disposition to be kind and forgiving, something for which to be thankful or a fortunate occurrence, or a blessing.

Is there a biblical difference in mercy? Let’s see.

Unger’s Bible dictionary defines mercy as

“Mercy is a form of love determined by the state or condition of its objects. Their state is one of suffering and need, while they may be unworthy or ill-deserving . Mercy is at once the disposition of love respecting such, and the kindly ministry of love for their relief.” (A quote from Miley, syst. Theoly., I, 209, 210). The expression, “I will have mercy not sacrifice,” indicates that God is pleased with the exercise of mercy rather than the offering of sacrifices “, though sin has made the latter necessary. Mercy is a Christian grace, and is very strongly urged toward all men.

We will then look at mercy from God to man, and mercy from man to man

God, has every right to judge man for our misdeeds, we are all under the authority of God, as He is the sovereign, the sole creator, and the only pure, righteous and perfect judge.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, therefore we are all worthy of judgement, but it is the nature of God to be merciful, and so He in His goodness and mercy, extends mercy to each and every one of us, it is only by His mercy that any of us are able to escape from the fiery judgement which we are all worthy.

We have all broken God’s law, and therefore we are all under the authority to be judged by the lone lawgiver, but He offers us mercy, and His desire is that we would all accept His mercy.

2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

God’s mercy is without limit, is offered freely and openly to all, and is the only thing that can save us from our path to destruction. God is not required to offer mercy, in fact that’s the beauty of mercy, mercy is not earned, but is given solely by the one who has the authority and power to judge the one under their authority.

What about mercy of men? How can we showcase mercy? are we obligated to show mercy? Is mercy love, or love in action? Can one love and not show mercy? Some of these questions will be answered in another post as we compare love and mercy, but for now we will tackle obligatory mercy and how we can showcase mercy.

This life gets hard, and it gets messy, and hurt people tend to hurt people. We are all in some measure broken and hurting, and that pain, that hurt and that brokenness can lead us to hurt others, whether we mean to or not.

People, even with the best of intentions can still hurt other people, and when we are hurt it can be easy for us to want to exact vengeance, to see the other person pay for their hurt they have caused, and sometimes it can be within our means to requite them if their wrongdoing.

These moments, when we are fully justified for wanting someone to pay for their wrong, both in the eyes of man and God, we can choose to have someone pay. Nobody would judge us for exercising our right to seek just recompense, it is reasonable, right and just.

In those moments however, we can offer mercy. Where judgement should be, we can choose to offer mercy, it is not required, often it is misunderstood and can be mocked and hated of the world, but mercy, when extended, can be life changing, behavior impacting, and Christ like.

Do we have to choose the path of mercy? No, there are times when the wrongs done to us truly are worthy of judgement and we have the right to seek out justice and judgement, now many instances we may desire justice for slights that are not worthy of justice, where it is out of our flesh and our selfish desire that we seek for others to hurt for what we presume to be slights, but there are also slights and wrongs worthy of harsh judgement.

Those moments, when someone truly wrongs us to the point of having genuine aught against them, and have a right to seek recompense, we have a choice of seeking out that retribution that their behavior merits, or we can choose to show mercy. In those instances where there is a path, and a choice, we get to choose right judgement without fault, or we can choose mercy, only God can be the judge over us in those moments. We will see, there are times where Christians can execute harsh judgement and we see God not imparting judgement on them for it.

Now, lest I leave any confused, and it sounds like an opportunity to hold onto grudges, there are a great, and I dare say most, offenses, slights and transgressions we suffer at the hands of others, both within the body of Christ, and without, do not deserve judgement; they are slight misgivings that hurt our pride more than cause real harm, these do not fall under items that justify judgement.

Only the feelers injuries permit harsh judgement, but slights that wound our feelings or pride do not give us such justification, or else everyone will run around holding grudges over the smallest of thing, of which should have no place amongst the body of believers, but in all things we should esteem others better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.)

Rather, mercy should always be the path chosen, and we should keep infighting and forgiveness amongst the household of faith, for the eyes of the world are always on us, watching how we behave ourselves, and by our love they will know we are Christ’s disciples.

Be blessed brothers and sisters, to all the dear saints who read this, may the grace and mercy of Christ be with you and in you. May you be strengthened to endure this life of trouble we wrestle with until the day of our glorious ascension when we take our place in the heavens where this is no variance or dissimulation.

Let God’s grace fill you to your brim that your cup may overflow, stand strong in the unity of the faith with all those who are called by Christ’s name. Amen.