In Our Place

The LORD is both kind and fair; that is why He teaches sinners the right way to live. May He show the humble what is right! May He teach the humble His way! The LORD always proves faithful and reliable to those who follow the demands of His covenant.  Psalms 25:8-10 NET

God’s promises of compassion and abundant pardon tell us that His thoughts and ways are not our thoughts and ways. In fact that’s God telling us that we cannot view His expressions of mercy with our old eyes of the world. 

Our very view of God must change. 

God’s heart of compassion bewilders me when I reflect on how He loves to respond to His people with immense love if we would but dump in His lap the ruin and wreckage of our lives. 

The Lord’s Mercy. 

Maybe, looking at the evidence of our life, we do not know what to think except that this mercy of God in Christ has passed us up. Maybe you have been deeply mistreated. Misunderstood. Betrayed by the one person you should have been able to trust. Abandoned. Taken advantage of. 

Or maybe you have caused those afflictions on another. 

But my friends, the evidence of Christ’s mercy toward us is not our lived life. The evidence of His mercy toward us is His life, death, resurrection—mistreated, misunderstood, betrayed, abandoned. Eternally. In our place.