8If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself,"[a] you are doing right. 9But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers 10For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11For he who said, "Do not commit adultery,"[a] also said, "Do not murder."[b] If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
12Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!
Basically, I see this as pretty cut and dry. Whether you sin once or ten times, you've sinned and broken the Law. Actually verses 12 and 13 are probably the ones I've been pondering the most.
It seems to me that so many people out there try so hard to find a way out of being merciful. In James we are told not to show partiality and yet, we do, we judge people and self righteously make up credible reasons not to show mercy. Someone wrongs us and we spend our lives sometimes trying to "right" the wrong. It's so much easier to not show mercy than to show mercy.
There are people who just can't help the situations they are in....Sometimes it's easy to show mercy to them. The children who are a living example of their conditions. However then there are people who are what they are because they have chosen that path. And let me tell you, we are told to show mercy to them also. There is no discrepancy in who we should show mercy to. Like them or not, frustrated and up to your ears in excuses, still, mercy will not be shown to those who have not shown it.
"Oh! But I have shown mercy". Don't be fooled. Showing mercy to some yet not others is just what is being discussed in verse 9!
It's definitely easier to show mercy to some. Sometimes it's very very hard to show mercy. Especially if someone hurt you or someone you love. But it's the fact that when you can show mercy, you are allowing yourself to be pulled up by God, you are fulfilling a purpose put on you only by Him who knows what we can and can not accomplish. And apparently, we can accomplish anything through Him. Striving to be Christ like is the key. Hard as that is, it isn't impossible or he wouldn't have asked it of us. Our Lord wouldn't give us false hope of being something we can't be!
Mercy triumphs over judgment! I love that.
I need all the mercy I can get, so that leaves me in a position to give all I can give. Judge me for that. And see where you are left.
Ok, let me just say something.
Sometimes the hardest lessons to learn, are the ones we think we already know. *sigh*
