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*
1 comment:
Christi, This is a little long, sorry.
How far should Love Go?
There is an old story about an Irish boxer – to make it short, some kids didn’t know who he was when he was older, and these punks started pushing him around and one hit him on the face and he turned and let them hit him again, then he said, “the lord has given no further instructions.”
Love God style always goes beyond min. daily requirements… it is not contaminated to any degree of self interest…. I have never done that. We were trained from the cradle with Christmas card loving. You know how that works… if you send a card and don’t get one back they are off the list the next year.
We learn love is too expensive to spend on people that don't appreciate it. Then Jesus comes along and says anybody can do that kind of loving. What do you do when loving costs you your shirt?
What qualifiers do you put on your love? God doesn't put any. He gives rain to everyone. Jesus says you let your rain and sunshine drench everybody, whether they are grateful for your continued grace or not.
Every day you have to ask, Am I today going to live as a reaction to other people or as a reflection of God?
It is liberating because you don't have to decide who to love.
Jesus said you are illustrating God when your love is not delinquent in returning good for evil.
See you might have been taught like that Football cheer we had in High School "Hit em again hit em again, Harder, Harder!"
But let me ask you this. Has the idea that 2 wrongs make a right.
Has that idea made the world safer?
Has it made your family closer?
Has it made the church more united?
You got to remember YOU deserve retaliation but God offered reconciliation. God's door mat says "Welcome Enemies"
Jesus says Love em again, love em again Harder, Harder!
The single greatest proof that you are god's man or woman and that you have a new nature and it is that you Love like no other.
1 peter 1: 18It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. 19He paid with Christ's sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. 20And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately--at the end of the ages--become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. 21It's because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God.
22Now that you've cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. 23Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God's living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself! 24That's why the prophet said,
The old life is a grass life,
its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers;
Grass dries up, flowers droop,
25God's Word goes on and on forever.
This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.
This is risky stuff we are talking about. To really love people you have to get so close that those people can hurt you if they want to.
You have not failed when you love like no other and it gets rejected.
You fail when the love you offer looks nothing like God.
I am not sure the church wants to hear this because we have a hard time acting like we understand this. The unbelieving world does not see God in our doctrine, They don't see god in our worship, they don't see god even in our holiness. They see God in us is when we reflect a love like no other they are used to seeing.
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