God Is Merciful and Gracious

Reverend Leo H. McCrary II

God’s great desire is for man to turn to Him and enjoy the great blessing of dwelling in His garden, eating His fruit, and drinking His water.

Today’s devotional reading: Isaiah 57:15-21.

Many of us are used to dealing with man. What I mean by this is that many of us have grown used to being penalized for our wrongs. Rather than receiving mercy, there are many who are slow to show mercy to others. In fact, when someone does wrong by us enough times, we can be slow to show mercy and forgive.

God is open to forgiving you of the choices you make against Him. The Lord has a well of infinite patience! We must learn to trust that God is merciful and gracious. This requires us to let go of the idea that God, like man, will hold our “crimes” against us.

We struggle with the idea of forgive and forget. We say that we will forgive someone, but we won’t forget. Honestly, that is not really forgiveness. To forgive is to grant relief from a debt; that debt will never come back. God gave His only begotten Son to pay off, to forever wipe away, the debt of our sin. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a great lesson one ought to learn to understand God’s great grace and mercy (Luke 15:31-32).

No matter your sin, if you don’t blaspheme the Lord (actively work against His works), God has His arms wide open to greet you, to show you mercy, and to forgive you. Don’t ever judge God’s mercy and grace by the lack of grace and mercy that man shows to you.