This value is powerful because it focuses on your circle of influence. It’s an inside out approach. By seeking first to understand, we can turn a transactional opportunity into a transformational opportunity.

He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

Seek First to Understand

We Value the judgment to error on the side of giving mercy to others.

• Eventually God breaks every rule in the Old Testament; this is mercy. -Brueggemann.
• God sits on a seat of mercy.
• God’s throne is the place to obtain mercy.
• He visits sin to 3-4 generations but shows mercy to 1000’s.
• Mercy pursues me all the days of my life.
• Mercy is new every morning.
• God is rich in mercy.
• Mercy triumphs over judgment.
• the Chorus of history in Psalm 136 is, his mercy endures forever repeated 26 times!
• I was born in Mercy hospital…so were you
• The church is the house of mercy.
• I never bet against the mercy of God because I never like my odds. – Bill Everitt
• It is better to have to give an account to God for too much mercy than for too much severity. —–St. Antoninus.

God does not have love, He IS love! He cannot have more or less, it is not quantitative or measurable; it can’t be quenched or kindled by behavior…good or bad. God’s love is like the sun and rain it comes to both the good and the evil.

BUT…
What do you do when you fall flat on your face
fall from a life of social grace,
feel the shame of Adam’s race,
your creator’s image is now mud on your face,
to everyone around you’ve become a big disgrace,
a wreck and ruin …an emotional basket case,
your sin and shame you can’t erase,
there is no place you can show your face,
you’re driven from your place,
locked away inside a tight space,
they’ve taken your photo like you were shot with mace,
like a fugitive you wish you could lose yourself w/out a trace,
your past is scattered like ashes from a shattered vase?

I am sure that we are all well informed on the scandals concerning; President Bill Clinton and his questionable relationship with Monica Lewinsky, which is nothing in comparison to King David and his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and his murderous cover up of her husband.  Then there is the Tiger Woods entanglements due to his entitlements that has left him just a shell of his former self.  Then there is the Penn State football fumble concerning Joe Paterno and his prior knowledge  concerning assistant coach Jerry Sandusky who has been charged with 40 criminal counts, accusing him of molesting eight young boys.  Then there is the dictatorship of Saddam Huessin, who also by comparison was a boy scout compared to King Nebuchadnezzer, the actual head of gold when it came to ego-maniac emperors and yet he found mercy in the God of Daniel.

The line separating good and evil passes, not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties—but right through every human heart. – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Could you believe that you were a candidate for the mercy of God after a public Sex Scandal, followed by lies, deception, premeditated murder and a year long cover up?
I mean he broke two the big ten commandments so then on what basis do you appeal to God?  On this alone…Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Psalm 51

The breaking news stories of our day and times are worthy of epic biblical responses…

The SCANDAL of our faith is God’s LOVE!!!!!!!!

As rapidly and riveting as the Penn State news broke…our news should be constantly breaking into peoples “regularly scheduled lives”. Interrupting them with the scandal of his love for them regardless of their life or lifestyle. Our Good News trumps their bad news any day!

“Even our troubles don’t belong to us exclusively; within them is the seed of another person’s comfort, hope, and inspiration. My mercy is not my mercy. It all belongs to others, and those others were once you and me.” – Paul Scanlon

• Do people instinctively look to the church when they need mercy?
• Do you believe that no one is beyond Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness?
• What if how we judged others is how we’ll be judged when we need mercy?

We are called to LOVE mercy…we must begin to see people as Jesus sees them. Jesus never sees a person’s external presentation. He never saw a tax collector, prostitute, thief, drunkard…he never saw people as SINNERS.

In Jesus’ constitution of the kingdom of God, the beatitudes, he defines the divine life. The word blessed from the classical Greek is best rendered “the life of the gods”!  From his 4th and 5th beatitudes Blessed are those who hunger & thirst for righteousness…Blessed are the merciful…you can hear a deliberate echo of Micah 6:8 do justly & love mercy…

Later in the sermon of the mount…in Matthew 5:48, Jesus calls us to perfection and in Luke 6:36 to be merciful.  The perfection God is looking for is not the unattainable perfection of flawlessness—but the fully attainable perfection of extending mercy to those who are flawed.

Here is where my imperfections come soaring to the surface. I am so full of my own judgments, insecurities, fears, inferiority, and infirmities that I fail to be compassionate…which is mercy in motion.

For example I have people in my life (maybe you do too) that I cannot love.  They remind me that it is not them that are full of shortcomings, but me, because I am not yet perfected in love. It humbles me to recognize that after 46 years of following Christ I don’t have enough of his life and love to absorb my neighbors and enemies.

But as we continue to grow in Christ we can gain the heart ability to believe that God really does love others, strangers and enemies.  As we do our faith in God’s love will bring about his love in us for them. Empowering us to see them, serve them and save them.

Without a commitment to justice, mercy can collapse into cheap sentimentality. When the longing for justice banishes mercy we have abandoned the Jesus way.  When we bring justice to the poor, widow, orphan and foreigner, God calls that mercy. If your understanding of God doesn’t make you more merciful then you misunderstand God.

Jesus was merciful toward sinners…as long as their sin was not being unmerciful. So if you’re going to be a sinner, I would suggest your sin be something other than showing no mercy because Jesus was only unmerciful with those who were unmerciful.

2 Cor. 5:14 For the love of Christ controls and urges and impels us, because we are of the opinion and conviction that [if] One died for all, then all died; Amplified Bible.  Paul used the word “constrained” – a medical term used only by physicians probably borrowed from his traveling companion, Luke. It was used to describe the condition of a virus in the body that brought about a severe fever. The virus was so controlling that it would bring you to hallucinations. The diagnosis was “you were constrained.”

We have the virus of another life…the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.  David Oxberg wrote, Being listened to is so close to being loved that most people cannot tell the difference.  In his famous prayer, St. Francis of Assisi asked God to help him to “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Their is a biblical basis for testing your mercy quotient, its the love test.

• The test of your love for God is seen in your love for your neighbor.
• The test of your love for your neighbor is seen in your love for yourself.
• The test of your love of your self is seen in your love for your enemy…because you are your own worst enemy.

The test isn’t given on Sunday’s at church, but in every day real life situations.