to love mercy

I know I have mentioned this book here before but here I go again because another chapter really impacted me. Relationships A Mess Worth Making. It is by Tim Lane and Paul Tripp.

This week I studied the chapter on Mercy. The book defines Mercy as the kind, sympathetic and forgiving treatment of others that works to relieve their distress and cancel their debt or it is the compassion combined with forbearance and action.

Some points from the chapter are

-A commitment to mercy will reveal your own need for mercy
-mercy is not something you feel but something you do
-mercy is needed because we live in the middle of the great redemptive story, the people we live with nor the world we live in are perfect.
-often the great struggle with mercy is its call to relate to people we consider beneath us. We tend to see ourselves as 'rich' and others as 'poor'
-whenever you are involved with people who need mercy, you will be sinned against.
- I need to show mercy because I was shown mercy.
-whenever you extend mercy, you will begin to see how selfish, impatient, unforgiving and inconsistent you can be.

Micah 6:8 He has showed you , O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

This past weekend Dr Richardson said that when we see a command in scripture we need to realize we are commanded to do things that don't come naturally to us. We are commanded to love mercy.

I highly recommend this book.