POST #27: JESUS' SERMON ON THE MOUNT: What is mercy? Blessed are the merciful...

 JESUS' "Sermon on the Mount" begins with 3 beatitudes that explain the attitudes/behaviors that a christian's heart should have in response to our GREAT GOD: 

1. poor in spirit (recognizing, with humility/submission, how much I need my GOD)
2. mourning (confessing/repenting of my sinfulness)
3. meek (gently handing the leadership of my life to my GOD)

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This humble, contrite, submissive response is followed by a fourth attitude/behavior: 

     4.  hungering and thirsting for righteousness (a desire to know more about GOD, HIS ways, HIS desires by getting to know JESUS - our Righteousness).

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What are the blessings/promises that come from living out these first 4 beatitudes?

1. I'm part of the Kingdom of Heaven!
2. I'm comforted!
3. I will "inherit the earth"!  (...because my FATHER, the CREATOR, can supply all my needs and so much more...)
4. I will be satisfied!

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This whole process is ongoing... cyclical... daily...  Yet, the more I live out these first four beatitudes, the more I grasp the enormity of GOD's grace and mercy that's been extended to me. I'm growing in my understanding of how much mercy I really have received.  I, then, in turn choose to extend mercy to others:

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Attitude / behavior:

      5.  "BLESSED are the merciful...

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Blessing/Promise:

      5.   ...for they shall receive mercy."

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Today, join me in meditating on the following.  There are three times in the gospels that JESUS uses the word "merciful".  The first two are in HIS "Sermon on the Mount":
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Matthew 5:7

 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy."
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Matthew 6:36

"Be merciful, just as your FATHER is merciful."
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Luke 18:9-14

^{9 "}And HE also told this parable

to some people who trusted in themselves

that they were righteous,

and viewed others with contempt:

¹⁰ “Two men went up into the temple to pray,

one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

¹¹ The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself:

 ‘GOD, I thank YOU that I am not like other people:

swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

¹² I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’

¹³ But the tax collector,

standing some distance away,

was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven,

but was beating his breast, saying,

‘GOD, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

¹⁴ I tell you,

this man went to his house justified rather than the other;

for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,

but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

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Do you see what I see?   

1.  When I choose to be merciful, I am BLESSED to get mercy in return.  

2.  My model for mercy, is my heavenly FATHER.

3.  Requesting mercy requires humility on my part.
4.  GOD's mercy is a driving force of love and compassion, that leads HIM to extend freedom and relationship to people who do not deserve it.

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BLESSED!  

OH, THE JOY!

                                           GIGATTAATTGIG