UNFAILING MERCY

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness” – Lamentations 3: 22-23

MERCY is the visible, tangible, and dynamic expression or demonstration of divine Love – the outworking of God’s divine love. It is His kindness or benevolence stretched towards mankind to meet our needs. God – who is Love – expresses Himself as “the Father of mercies”. Mercy is an attribute of God within Himself without regard to the creature.  God is rich in mercy toward Himself. That is, God is tenderly affected toward Himself as the highest good, and constantly wills Himself to be most blessed and glorious, the Ancient of Days!  Most often, however, Scripture speaks of the Mercy of God that He shows to His people in order to deliver them from sin and misery. God's Mercy is that powerful and wonderful attribute according to which He both wills and accomplishes the deliverance of the oppressed out of misery into realms of blessings. Mercy is not only a feeling that God has, but part of His power. God acts in Mercy to accomplish the deliverance of His people and bring them into spheres of Joy, Comfort, and Fulfilment.

Mercy is an infinite, inexhaustible capability within the divine nature, which disposes God to be actively compassionate. The mercy of God, as a precious gem, has many facets.  It is eternal – from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear God. There never was a time when God did not burn with desire to deliver and bless His children! 

His Mercy is Sovereign and free: it does not come to a particular person, because of something he or she has done, but it is due only to God. Romans 9:9-15 concludes on this note:  “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy” (v.16). His Mercy is great! It is abundant and above the heavens. How great that mercy must be when we consider the depths out of which it has taken us and the heights to which it has raised and will yet raise us!

His Mercy is Unchangeable. The great I AM never changes in His desire to deliver and bless; He never removes His mercy from His children. The Psalmist proclaimed: “Blessed be God, Who has not turned away my prayer, nor HIS MERCY from me!” (Psa.66:20). The Mercy of God shall never be turned away from you, in Jesus name!

His Mercy is Timeless, not temporary: “Surely goodness and MERCY shall follow me all the days of my life…” (Psa.23:6). God’s Mercy is meant to be perpetual in the lives of His people. Mercy is not a temporary mood with God, but His eternal disposition and lifestyle, indeed, an expression of His Personality. When Moses pleaded with Jehovah to be shown His Glory, what the Lord released and revealed were His Goodness and Mercy (Exo.33:18-19). Again, the Lord God introduced Himself in these Mercy-laden words: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation” (Exo.34:6-7).

The Mercy of God is Unfailing: “It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassion fails not, they are new every morning:  great is Thy faithfulness” (Lam.3:21-22). This implied that God's Mercy is a power that preserves us. Jeremiah had in mind the multiple stages of Israel's history through which the Mercy of God rescued and preserved His people, including future prophecies of deliverance. Mercy is major among the divine Instruments of Deliverance. The time and context of Jeremiah’s prophecy was immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and his prevailing army. Jeremiah and a few other elderly people had been left behind. Amazingly the prophet sang a song that extolled the Mercy of God even as he sat amongst the ashes of the holy city! Here, as elsewhere in Scripture, divine mercy expresses God's, compassion, lovingkindness, and tenderness.