Have Mercy

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy."

Mercy is a word I'm going to focus on in 2018. I'm going to look for it in my daily Bible reading, and I'm  going seek to grow in understanding it. What does God say about mercy? How important is mercy to God?

O course it goes without saying (but I'll say it) that mercy is very important to God.

"He has told you, I man, what is goodl and what does the Lord require but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." Micach 6:8

That word translated "kindness" (ESV) is "mercy" in the King James ad many others. "Kindness" is perhaps a more down-to-earth word for mercy. And kindness, you may recall is one of the fruits of the Spirt (Gal. 5:22).

In fact, that passage, Paul's list of the fruits of the Spirit, provides me with all my keywords for 2018. These are the concepts I'm going to focus on in my Bible reading this year.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

As I said in the last post, all virtues are foretastes of the Kingdom of God. Their "down-payments" of the Kingdom. But (to take today's example) what is mercy? I'm not going to rest on what I think I know about it. I'm going to ask the Bible to refine my knowledge of mercy, and all those other virtues listed by Paul.

That's the idea, anyway. The Spirit wants to raise up a crop of kindness/mercy in the children of God. May all of us grow in mercy in the coming year.