Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: mercy

  • Psalm 119:175 – Let Me Live

    Psalm 119:175 – Let Me Live

    Let me live so I can praise you,
    and let your judgments help me.

    This is an interesting expression, especially as we come to the end of this Psalm. The entire Psalm is giving praise for the order brought to human existence by God’s actions-instruction, law, judgment, precept, testimony, statute. These various expressions combine to give praise for who God provides order in the universe and also order in human lives.

    The Psalm is anything but legalistic if you pay attention to it as a whole. If you base an accusation of legalism on the number of references made to the law, you are missing the poetic effect. The Psalmist praises God for all this and he also determines to keep all these laws, but then he’ll mention the fact that he knows he fails and ask God to be with him.

    In this next to last verse, we have the expression of praise for a God who gives life. “Let me live,” is the cry of many. Even if you are feeling very self-sufficient, there will be moments of disease, or impending disaster, of simple awareness of all the things that could go wrong. At such moments, you will likely cry out, whether to God or into the void, “Let me live!”

    The second line of the verse fills this out with another hope, that all of God’s judgments will be in our favor. This is again a common cry in scripture, because we know that we often slip up and need mercy. There is a famous “sinner’s prayer” which is a prayer for salvation. But there is an even better sinner’s prayer: “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

    This is a theme that is woven all through scripture. We may fail, but God’s mercy does not.

    The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases,
    his mercies never come to an end;
    they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

    Lamentations 3:22-23 (NRSV)

    This is a very famous verse, constantly quoted, but it comes from a book justifiably titled “Lamentations.” Let’s look at a couple of verses just a bit before:

    The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
    is wormwood and gall!
    My soul ccocntinually thinks of it
    and is bowed down within me,
    But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:

    Lamentations 3:19-21 (NRSV)

    What follows, of course, is the passage I quoted earlier.

    When trouble comes, when you’re burdened by affliction, homelessness, or maybe just besetting doubt, remember this:

    It is the LORD who gives you life, and the LORD’s judgment is going to favor you because you are God’s child.

  • Psalm 119:156 – Great Mercy

    Psalm 119:156 – Great Mercy

    Your mercy is great, LORD!
    Grant me life according to your judgments.

    “Mercy is great” could be translated “mercies are many.” I think it comes down to much the same thing.

    Notice the parallel here between God’s mercy and God’s judgments. The Hebrew word order places the words “mercies” and “judgments” at the start of their respective lines.

    How do these two elements interact?

    That is much of what this whole Psalm is about. The Psalmist is clearly thankful for God’s law. He’s not just thankful that it’s out there somewhere, telling him what God is like, or that it’s putting a standard before us that we can’t meet. He’s thankful for it in action, in our day to day lives, and in our relationship to God.

    Now I believe that God’s law presents to us a standard that we cannot meet. But God’s law also presents to us a God who can and will take us to that standard. The goal is not simply the accomplishment of some list of duties, or the avoidance of some list of sins. Rather, the goal is to be the person, “a little lower than God” (Psalm 8:6).

    God, being merciful, saves us from ourselves, and grants us life according to his judgments, namely something beyond what we can imagine. Sin is destructive. Mercy is not an emotional condoning of sin, but rather, a rescue from it, and a path to a better way.

    All of this comes up as an act of God.

    Now let me wander from the text. In Psalm 119 we have both the individual working and God working and giving. I want to again depart from my usual pattern and quote from John Wesley on this:

    XLVIII. If, then, you say, ” We ascribe to God alone , the whole glory of our salvation, ” I answer, So do we too. If you add, ” Nay, but we affirm, that God alone does the whole work, without man’s working at all; ” in one sense, we allow this also. We allow it is the work of God alone, to justify, to sanctify, and to glorify, which three comprehend the whole of salvation. Yet we cannot allow, that man can only resist, and not in any wise work together with God: or, that God is so the whole worker of our salvation, as to exclude man’s working at all. This I dare not say; for I cannot prove it by Scripture: nay , it is flatly contrary thereto: for the Scripture is express, that (having received power from God) we are to “work out our own salvation:” and that (after the work of God is begun in our souls) we are “workers together with him.”

    The Works of John Wesley, vol. 14, p. 347, “Predestination Calmly Considered”

    To go back a bit and cover one point here, we might ask if we are coworkers with God do we not get some of the glory. Wesley commented on this a bit before this quote:

    If so, your assertion is, “If man do at all work together with God, in working out his own salvation, then God does not do the whole work, without man’s working together with him.” Most true; most sure: but cannot you see how God nevertheless may have all the glory? Why the very power to “work together with him,” was from God. Therefore, to him is all the glory.

    Ibid, 346-347

    Mercy is often, if not always shown by bringing the rebel into line with God’s will, God’s judgment. And thus, in many ways, mercy can be judgment and judgment mercy.

    In what ways will you experience God’s mercy today?

  • Psalm 119:149 – Mercy and Life

    Psalm 119:149 – Mercy and Life

    Hear my voice according to your lovingkindness (hesed).
    Oh LORD, give me life according to your judgments.

    This is a very interesting verse. I think it is also challenging.

    We see two aspects of God’s grace and mercy working together here. First, the psalmist asks for mercy from God, and so should we. Listen to us as one who is merciful.

    But what is the result of this mercy? We often think mercy as the part where the authority cancels punishment or removes other negative effects of something one has done. But here mercy leads to the next part, giving life, and this life is according to God’s judgments. Those judgments call on us to be merciful. (See Hosea 6:6 in the Hebrew scriptures.) Jesus used this very concept in the beatitudes, with Matthew 5:7: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

    But this goes back to the call of Abraham in Genesis 12, where Abraham is told that God will bless him and others will be blessed through him.

    It’s easy to get this in reverse. We like to feel that we earn things. But the starting point is receiving God’s mercy, and one of the results is that we will learn to become merciful ourselves. We can think of this as a special action by God, but I would suggest that it is built into the fabric of the universe God created. We find this as the law of sowing and reaping. If we sow mercy, we reap mercy. That is, we help create an atmosphere in which mercy rules.

    Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged,” should likely be read in a similar sense. Don’t sow judgment and condemnation. Sow grace and forgiveness. Do this because you have received grace, and do it because grace is a good thing, and you can spread it to others. One of the best ways for someone to learn of God’s grace is to see God’s grace working in one of God’s professed (and hopefully real) followers.

    When we cry out to God, as this section of the Psalm has been describing, God doesn’t merely waive a penalty for things we have done. Yes, God does that. But God does much more. God begins to work, according to God’s judgment, on giving us life.

    And in all this we become partners with God in creating this life and this atmosphere of mercy and caring. We’re not God’s partners because we came with something new to contribute. Rather, we can give because we received.

    I want to add something the Psalm is not addressing. Mercy and caring are not economic goods. That means they are not scarce. You can care about additional people without running out. Caring about one person doesn’t mean you have to despise another. All people, not just the ones you or I happen to like, can receive God’s mercy and God’s care. And all people should receive our care.

    Who can you have mercy on today as God has had mercy on you?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI. First try, too!)