April.19.01: Light For The Day - "Love & Mercy" -- Ephesians 2:4-5 (NLT) "But God is so rich in Mercy, and he loved us so very much,  5 that even while we were dead because of our sins,  he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.  (It is only by God’s special favor that you have been saved!)" ------------------- There is a word that describes the gap between human  love and the love of God. That word is MERCY.  Repeatedly in Scripture there is reference to God's mercy  and loving kindness. The two go together like love and  marriage.  Someone has said that grace is God giving us what we  don't deserve. Mercy is Him withholding what we deserve.  Because of the evil in us, God's law says we deserve death,  but because of His great mercy, which was brought to a  climax by Jesus' death on the cross, we can have life instead  -- eternal life. We did nothing to deserve it.  It is given to us by an act of His mercy. When we consider the breakdown of marriages and friendships  and every other human relationships, it is because we are trying  to give the other person what we believe he or she deserves.  You hurt me, and therefore you deserve to be hurt,  is our rationale. What our relationships lack is MERCY.  Human love is how we behave toward someone who is loving  toward us. Mercy or divine love is how we behave when  someone has been unloving toward us.  MERCY is unnatural for human being. It is natural for God.  That is why His love is far greater than ours. Yet as we draw  close to Him and desire to be like Him, a miracle can take  place in our lives. We can have Mercy on others as He had  Mercy on us.  Imagine the wonders that love and Mercy can work if they  flow freely through us to every person we come in contact with.  Let us never forget the wonders of God's Mercy toward us --  That is the key to letting it flow to others. -- Unknown -------------------- -- Jude 1:21 (RSV) "keep yourselves in the love of God;  wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." -- 1 Peter 1:3 (RSV) "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope  through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." -- 1Peter 2:9 (RSV) "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,  God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds  of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were no people but now you are God’s people;  once you had not received Mercy but now you have received  Mercy."