Giving Mercy

Jesus said to his disciples: «Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:36

It makes sense.

To give mercy, or to be merciful. For people in poverty. For the abused. For the forgotten. For the worker who was laid-off. For the family relative who is not making ends meet. For the dead who was misdiagnosed. For the victims of massacres or heinous crimes. For the street dwellers, homeless and cold.

Can you also be merciful to people who are above the above persons? Government officials who are rich and who lives as if there are no poor in their community. People who deliberately deny the existence of the forgotten people. The boss who fired the worker. The relative who has much but don’t want to share. The doctor who did the mistake in the diagnosis. The culprits behind the death of the massacre victims. The people who are in power who can make a difference in the lives of the homeless yet they don’t.

Remember Paul. He was persecuting God’s church. He was leading the destruction of the mission. He was high above the lowly. He was powerful against the powerless. If you read about his exploits against the early Christians, you’ll have mercy to the oppressed followers but not to Paul. However, God thinks otherwise. God calls Paul into his side and gives his mercy to him just as God gives his mercy to the faithful. Mercy was given to the persecuted and to the persecutor.

The Father’s mercy does not know no levels in life. It is provided to people who don’t deserve it for none deserves it. It does not weigh on your economic standing. Mercy is free no matter what is your position in the company, in the church or in life. It does not claim benefit to people who has less or more. It does not discriminate. God’s mercy is given to all.

“Be merciful just as the Father is merciful”, Jesus tells us. Mercy, God gives it to you. Give it to all. It makes sense.

In Between

For I know my offense; my sin is always before me. Psalm 51:3

Let’s try to dissect David’s statement. What did he mean when he said about knowing his offense, and his sin is always before me?

When you sin, you know you sinned. You can deny it before your family and friends. You can keep it to yourself. Nobody might know it or not. Or nobody don’t care if you did it or not. Or maybe people may not come up to you to confront you about your wrongdoings. But between you and God, you know you have sinned. There is no denying the fact you step out of bounds in your relationship with the loving Father.

So when you know you sinned, your sin will always gives you this conviction that you have done it. You always see it before you. It will bug you. Is it guilt or shame? It’s up to you. When you look in the mirror, you see the sin you did. When you are before your friends or family, you have this wall, your sin, in relating with them. It’s just not the same stuff. Your sin may not be publicly exposed yet your mindset in your eyes see that sin in front of you.

Most importantly, when seen is before you and when you come in God’s presence, there’s something in between you and God. Sin. This is will turn out to be good or bad.

Bad because if your heart is hard to repent from the sin, the gap before you and God stays. You can’t see God fully as the sin blocks you. You know the sin gives you a certain distance from God yet you allow it to remain.

Good because if you are confessing the sin to God, you are asking for forgiveness from Him, you are exposing the sin to the merciful Lord. You are not denying it. You are being true to your weakness. You are saying you can’t do it alone, asking for his strength. You are being confident of his mercy. You are allowing him to renew you and restore you.

So, today, dissect your heart. Examine your life. You know your offenses. You see your sins before you. Decide to confess and repent.

With God and you, don’t let come sin come in between.

 

Yes Bo, We Are Parasites

“Yours, O LORD, are grandeur and power, majesty, splendor, and glory. For all in heaven and on earth is yours; yours, O LORD, is the sovereignty; you are exalted as head over all. “Riches and honor are from you, and you have dominion over all. In your hand are power and might; it is yours to give grandeur and strength to all.” 1 Chronicles 29:11-12

Bo Sanchez, a popular preacher and financial freedom mentor in the Philippines, sent an interesting email to all subscribers of his soul food. Since I’m an email subscriber I received the said email. In this message, Bo details how one relative would come to their home to ask for various financial help. Tuition fees, house rent, utility bills, school projects, dental expenses, and school shoes are some of the items this relative would cite to gain aid from Bo’s mother.  When the parent became old, the daughter and her son took the role of coming over to enumerate their financial woes which Bo’s mother would mitigate by helping out.  Bo points out that these dole outs turned their relatives to become parasites. Always on the receiving end but not on the giving end.

David, a popular Biblical hero and king, sent a message to God’s people twenty centuries ago, “Yours, O LORD, are grandeur and power, majesty, splendor, and glory. For all in heaven and on earth is yours; yours, O LORD, is the sovereignty; you are exalted as head over all. “Riches and honor are from you, and you have dominion over all. In your hand are power and might; it is yours to give grandeur and strength to all.” 1 Chronicles 29:11-12. This is clear – all in heaven and on earth is God’s. This is crystal – riches and honor are from God.  Everything we had, everything we have, and everything we will have comes from God. Our financial prosperity comes from God alone though we work our butts out yet our skills and talents which we use to get compensation belongs to God. His strength is the strength when we apply our education. His wisdom is the wisdom we share to innovate. God’s resources are the resources we have in order to do work may it be to provide food for your family or to spark inspiration to your brothers and sisters. All achievements and credentials which give you honor comes from Him.

We are at the mercy of the Owner. We depend on His dole outs. We are always at the receiving end and never on the giving end since anything we give to Him is from Him.

Yes Bo, we are parasites.

Blessed to See

……. “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.” Luke 10:23

Today is the twentieth death anniversary of our brother Ely. It’s still vivid in my mind and heart when he died.  I was about to get my first ever class cards in college when the news came to me as I reached home.  And his death was brutal. He was shot in the head saying no to hooligans who were asking parcel of the construction materials of the project he was managing.  And as he died, our father died too. You see, our brother maybe the best child parents would want to have. Kind, respectful, loving, self-less, God fearing and intelligent – that’s our brother Ely.  He was even ranked 5^th in his national civil engineering board exams. There was no day and night you could not feel the anguish and sadness which his death brought in our home. My father devoted his time in gaining justice from his death. He went with the police everyday to investigate the crime. Our father utilized every connection he knows to help us bring the culprits to prison. But to no avail.

And when he was about to give up, he was blessed to see. Our father told that once he was in the police car, the officers left their weapons in the car with him.  This was the same instance where they visited the suspects in their houses. The thought of using the guns at that time crossed our father’s mind.  He said in his mind, justice can be easily won by just going out of the police car and fire the gun at these suspects.  Yet he saw there was justice which is not in his hands but in God’s hands.   And he saw his wife and other seven children who are alive.

Up to now, we haven’t got justice from our brother’s death. Our parents have died not seeing justice heave from his death. If you search our hearts, I bet you will still see some pain and some feelings for retribution.  However, we thank and praise God for blessing us with eyes to see what we see. We see life rather than death. We see hope rather than despair. We see the future rather than the past. We see completion rather than frustration. We see the light rather than the darkness.  We see God’s mercy rather than human justice.  We see God’s love greater than our pain and hate.

And these do not come easy in living our daily lives. But with God and His providence, we are blessed to have eyes to see what we see.