#DailyDevotion Jesus’ Death Shows Us How God Delights In Showing Mercy
Micah 7:18-20 18Who is a God like You? You forgive sin and pass by the wrong of the remnant of Your own people! You will not be angry forever, because You delight in mercy. 19You will again be kind to us, and throw all our sins into the deep sea. 20You will be faithful to Jacob and kind to Abraham as You promised our fathers with an oath long ago.
Who is a God like the God of Israel. On the one hand, he is a God of wrath and punishment to those who sin not trusting him and doing what he says not to do. Certainly we see this throughout the Scriptures. But is that what delights him? It doesn’t seem so. He’s always sparing humanity in one way or another. He spared 8 people through the flood. He spared Lot and his family from Sodom. He didn’t wipe all the Israelites when right after hearing his commandments from his mouth on the mountain and they went off and broke them as Moses went up the mountain. He left a remnant of Northern Israel from the hands of Assyrians and a remnant from Judah from the hands of the Babylonians when they rejected him and would not follow his ways.
He, the God of Israel, Yahweh, forgives sin and passes by the wrong of the remnant of his people. He does not stay angry forever because he delights in mercy. Did you read that right? The one true God delights in mercy. This is not new in the Old Testament, Ezek. 33, 11… “As I live, says the Lord GOD, I don’t want the wicked man to die; I want him to turn from his way and live.” We see in also in the New Testament, 2 Peter 3, 9“He is patient with you and doesn’t want any to perish but wants them all to come to repentance.” The one true God isn’t up in clouds with a big stick who can’t wait to wop you over the head with it when you do wrong. He will though discipline us when we stray from his ways out of love for us knowing it is not good for us to live outside of his ways.
Micah tells us, “You will again be kind to us, and throw all our sins into the deep sea.” Such is the nature of the LORD. The devil wants us to believe God just wants to punish us and make us suffer. This is so far from the truth. It is a twisting of the nature of God. If anyone wants us to suffer and be punished it is him. Misery loves company and he is the miserable creature of all. He wants us to join him in his misery.
What is the proof that God wants to through all sins into the deep sea? Listen to Jesus in John 3, 14“As Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up 15so that everyone who believes in Him has everlasting life. 16God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. 17You see, God didn’t send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him.” God plunges all our sins into the deep sea of Jesus holes of Jesus’ hands, feet and sides. He cast them into the sea of Jesus’ soul as Paul writes in Galatians 3, “13Christ paid the price to free us from the curse of the Law when He was cursed for us (it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’).” So flee from your sins into the hands of the merciful God in Christ Jesus.
Heavenly Father, you delight in showing the children of Adam mercy. Give us your Holy Spirit so we may believe his as we look to Jesus and his wounds from the cross from where all mercy from you flows. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.