1 Peter 2:10
“Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Once in Christ, God deals with us mercifully. However, we must address our sin first. The previous verse mentions that we were delivered from darkness to His wonderful light. We were in a fallen state. We were living a life of judgement. We had to have our sin dealt with. Until then we would be in darkness.
God would forever seeks to draw us to Himself. Revelation 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.” God wants to pour out His love and mercy on us. His love is like gravity. There is that constant pull.
How does He draw us? Being alive in this world we experience the benefits of Him and His love. If we inventory our emotions of joy, contentment, eating, exercising, working, relationships, accomplishments, love, even the so-called dark emotions have their place, sorrow, grief and so on. These are of God. Without Him, they don’t exist and/or certainly aren’t balanced. Part of what makes hell so horrible is the absence of God. Thus the absence of all of the goodness mentioned.
Once we accept Christ and have our sin forgiven, we are now living under a new system. One of love and mercy. Consider that we were adopted by a loving, wealthy grandfather. One who looked upon us and smiled. He has endless love and resources.
How do we experience His love and mercy? All is good, even though it doesn’t feel like it at the time. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Even the worries and problems of our days, He turns into blessings. We rarely see it in the moment. However, if we yield to the process, we will be at peace. We say, “Lord, I don’t understand how this is good, but I trust You to make it so.”
We have a tendency towards shame and guilt. God seeks to alter that, as we follow Him. Philippians 4:8 describes part of the process. “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” We tend to dwell on negatives. This isn’t just dwelling on the positive, but on His Word, also.
His Word is like turbo fuel. It compounds our growth. Hebrews 4:12 says His Word is living and active. It’s more than a good read. Jesus describes His Word as seed. As we are in the bible, it’s planted in us and blooms. It gives His love and mercy more access to us.
As we go through our day, He is intricately involved. A yielded life immersed in God’s Word is walking with the Father.
Lord, thank You for Your love and mercy. Help us to recognize it and further yield to it.