How is God merciful?

Question

I hear a lot of things about God's "mercy." My sister used to sign her letters "By His Mercies." Can you help me understand?

By "mercy" do people mean "not burning us forever when we die" is merciful? To me that seems to be a great many things: sane, reasonable, fair, but not "merciful." Can you illuminate God's mercy for me?

Sorry but "grace" doesn't explain anything. Can you PLEASE elaborate?

Answer 1

argh
While being alive and a properly functioning human being is a miracle, it is NOT miracle of God.
If God is so loving, why, why, WHY is His allowing us to live considered a merciful act and simply not an indifferent one?
Does he constantly have to be like
'Ok, so, they can go ahead and breathe for another 20 minutes and have cognizant thought for that time as well. Afterwards, I'll send down a seizure just for the hell of it.'
Honestly, if there is a God, I doubt he gives a damn about 6 billion + beings and their current health state. To me, that is more of an indifferent act, if you can even call not giving two cents an 'act', since a body is capable of being perfectly healthy on it's own.

MERCY- n. ; compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power; compassion, pity, or benevolence

Allowing something to run it's course and just simply let it be =/= mercy.

Answer 2

Mercy is by showing us that there is an out. That we don't have to run the merry path to hell. God is holy and therefore no sin can be before Him, and yes ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
So God made a way in which we can have a relationship with Him like He intended in the first place. And that is atonement for our sins, through the Christ.
It is our choice to ether except Christ or not. As God doesn't want a bunch of robots, so he has given us all free will. So then it is up to us to except God's mercies or not. This mercy isn't stopped by any sin in which we do here on earth, the only way to truly "go to hell" is deny God at the complete end of your life. With your dieing breath.
As for instance, take David in the Bible, He committed Adultery, lied, and committed a man to death to marry that man's wife. But God called David "A man after God's own heart.". Why did God do this with David? Because David ask God to forgive his sins against God. David could have been killed by stoning for what he did, but the mercy of God saved David's life.
And the difference between Judas and Peter. They both denied Jesus, but Peter asked for forgiveness. So it is a pride issue with us all when it comes down to it all. we don't want to except God's mercies as we want to do it our way instead.
Now done with my preaching, LOL.

Answer 3

Actually, this is a very good question.

It starts with the understanding that the world does not revolve around ourselves and what happens to us.

For example, the idea of Heaven is based on achieving specific goals through specific actions. You do not gain entrance into Heaven based on what happens to you.

Let us say you get up to the pearly gates and see 'ol St Pete standing there talking to people and you walk up and say "Sir, my life was just awful. I was teased by people mercilessly and then I was imprisoned for years and after I got out on parole my dog died."

St. Pete says "Gee, what about the ten people you shot up at school".

You say, "Well, they teased me and made my life hell so they deserved it."

St. Pete makes a decision based on the choices you made, not on what happened to you.

Sometimes we make bad choices. As long as we learn from those choices God does not care about them. This is called Mercy and Grace.

For example, if you kill someone and repent God forgives you. In this world if you kill someone and repent you spend a life time in prison.

The Mercy is based on the choices you make. You can accept the Mercy from God in spite of being imprisoned by people or you can reject God's Mercy and go where your worm will never die.

Let me know if it made sense even if you do not select the answer. I keep trying to rephrase this message so that different people can understand it. Too many people get caught up in semantics and "meanings" of words and I want to communicate the idea of salvation.

Answer 4

Mercy to me is being given another chance to succeed. Because we sin we deserve to fail, but because of God's mercy He holds us up and lets us try again. Mercy is like forgiving someone when they deserve to be bumped over the head.

Answer 5

Mercy means that God gives us something that we do not deserve.

If you consider yourself to be doing God a favor by simply existing, then I suppose you think that the gifts that God has given you -- life, health, abundant food, a relatively easy life (as opposed to a starving orphan in Bangladesh), intelligence, gainful employment (you haven't been outsourced to that starving kid in India yet), etc. -- are something that you earned, so God isn't being merciful when you get them since you assume that he owes you something.

If that is the case, then there is no point in trying to explain it to you.

====edit====

Actually, this is a good definition:

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...Simply put, Jesus not only died for but also chooses to associate with sheltered, judgmental, proselytizing hypocrites who have put their faith in him. In fact, he's willing to let them muck up his "brand," willing to let each collection of potential televangelists and crusaders be known as a "church of Jesus Christ."

Part of the scandal of the Cross is the scandal of grace. And part of the scandal of grace is that I am part and parcel of the company of the graced.

My being a Christian means I am a member of a brotherhood of sinners, some of the most embarrassing sort. Even worse, to be a Christian is to acknowledge that I have been, at heart, a televangelist, a crusader, a sheltered, judgmental, proselytizing hypocrite.

I do not mean to suggest that we should be indifferent to such sins. If books and conversations like the ones I've experienced prod Christians to change their ways, it will be all to the good. But the church is always in need of reform, and its behavior will always be a scandal to anyone with moral sensibilities.

When we invite people to follow Jesus, we're inviting them into the desperately sinful church that Jesus, for some odd reason, loves. To be a Christian—or whatever term you'd prefer—is to identify not just with Jesus or with the healthy church of our imagination, but also with the tragically dysfunctional church, which is mercifully embraced, if not by us, then certainly by the One who was a scandal in his own day.

Answer 6

The wages of sin is death. Mankind is worthy of death. It is because of God's mercy that he sent his only Son to take away the sin of the world by dying on the cross. Without Jesus we have the death penalty hanging over our head, but Jesus give us life through faith in who he is & what He done. It is by the mercy of God that we wake every morning. It is because of his mercy that you could ask the question that you asked. I thank God for his mercy.

Answer 7

The God of my Bible is, by His own declaration, merciful, gracious, long suffering, full of goodness and truth a unique and beautiful concept indeed.
Being omnipotent He could be a tyrant. (an absolute ruler)
Being omniscient He could be intolerant (unwilling to tolerate others beliefs etc.)
Being eternal He could be indifferent to the needs of short lived creatures on a small and insignificant planet.
But, wonder of wonders, all His limitless power, wisdom, and knowledge are so blended with infinite goodness, mercy and truth.

Answer 8

Are you asking for truth, or just to be sarcastice about mercy? I do not ask that either to be sarcastic, but to ask your genuineness in your appeal?

Mercy. When God, planned to make the Heavens and the Earth He made a divine decree, which the Son agreed and the Holy Spirit implemented. This plan was that Jesus would die for the sins of the people that he was yet to create, for He knew before hand that they would sin, given a free will, having been made with out sin would chose to be disobedient, choose Satan over God's rulership. The Trinity had a divine counsel meeting before even Satan was created and fell. (many views there are to why is as mulititude as the stars are in the sky) However Gd did put forth his plan. And by the Son's acceptance mercy and grace were applied to creation before the foundatin of the world. Mercy and Grace were the plan and architect, because it did nothing to merit being created and it merited nothing afterwards of remainng so. By God's Mercy and grace, he created the man in the image of God, perfect, sinless. Why, man did not do anything to earn being created, nor again did he merit anything by works to remain. After man had named all the animals in the garden and there was find no helpmate for him, God, put Adam to sleep and from Adam's side he fashioned Eve, by that same Mercy and Grace. Adam did not merit a wife, nor Eve merit Adam they were given life by Grace. In he Garden they were placed to live in, to keep it, to care for it. In the course of time they believed Satan the Accuser of the Brethen and believed him more than God. So they fell, God again implemented Grace and Mercy in behalf of Christ, for Christ would one day come and be crucified, buried and rose the third day. He also saw you in your day, and you too came by no merit or work to be born, you may say you had no choice. True, but you are here nonetheless - God's mercy cries out to you and His grace is readied to be supplied to you so that you to may believe and live in him and He in you.

Thus by forsaking God will you along with Satan be cast out inot outer darkness where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth - the burning and fire of Hell I believe are unfulfilled spiritual desires to please God and walk with Him - call it what you will -

He is calling out to you right now! Believe in me with your whole heart ask for the forgiveness of your sins - those same sins which you have denied His goodness, mercy, love, compassion which He has made avalailable for you to receive in His Name because He loves you.

Answer 9

Fiery Hell is not a Bible teaching, so that doesn't affect whether or not God is merciful. Fiery Hell is something taught by religions to scare their adherents into doing whatever they say.

God's mercy is evident in sending His Son, Jesus to earth to die in behalf of our sins. Forgiveness of sins doesn't come automatically though. We must exercise faith in that sacrifice. This takes action (notice the word 'exercise'.) Saying "I believe!" isn't enough.

God's mercy is further shown in that he has allowed time to go by for people to change, get to know Him, and worship Him in an acceptable way. He's even sent people into the world to show them the way. We come to your door. God didn't have to do that. He could've just started Armageddon 200 years ago, and none of us would be here.

Answer 10

State of Grace

Give up Laptop...no one is going to prove anything to you no matter which word you choose. And...you are an intelligent person who already knows what the word "mercies" means in reference to religion.