Devotions

Jesus told a parable about a servant who was forgiven a great debt. This man found grace and mercy with his master, but he took it all for granted. Immediately after he was forgiven, he went out and began to choke a man who owed him a small, insignificant amount, demanding, “Pay me what you owe me — now!” When the debtor asked the man for mercy, he refused and had the debtor jailed.

Why was this man so judgmental? Why did he lack mercy? It was because he did not consider his own unworthiness. He did not understand how hopeless he was, how exceedingly sinful his own sin was. He did not appreciate the danger he had been in — how close to death he had been — before he had been shown mercy. When his master found out what the ungrateful man had done to the other debtor, he had him thrown into jail for life.

While I was studying this parable, the Lord stopped me and convicted me of my own lack of mercy. “Me, Lord? I’m one of the most merciful preachers in America.” But he began to remind me of insensitive remarks I had made, things I had blurted out in haste. I wept before the Lord and asked him how that could have happened.

“David, you have forgotten the incredible mercy I showed to you. How many times did I dig you out of something that could have destroyed you? You would not be here without my mercy!”

I wept before the Lord, and after asking his forgiveness I went back to the Word to seek his help in being more merciful. A wonderful verse I found is Psalm 119:76: “Let, I pray, Your merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to Your word to Your servant.”

The meaning here is, “Lord, your Word tells me I am to be comforted by the knowledge that you are merciful and full of compassion to me. Let me extend this same mercy to those around me.”

When the three young men we know as “the three Hebrew children” were thrown into the fiery furnace, a fourth Man was there with them — Jesus! The men did not get burned; in fact, their clothes and hair did not even smell of smoke when they emerged from the furnace. Beloved, that is the very kind of deliverance God wants to bring to you!

What is God’s motivation for wanting to deliver you? Is it because you have done something to appease him? Have you increased your prayer time? Do you spend more time reading the scriptures? Have you promised never to fail him again? Isaiah had the true revelation: “Since you were precious in My sight, you have been honored. And I have loved you” (Isaiah 43:4).

God was saying to Israel, “You are about to go through fires and floods but I am going to walk with you through them all. And in the end, I am going to deliver you simply because you are mine! I know you by name and you are the delight of my heart.”

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

You may say, “I can believe that God delights in righteous pastors. They pray and spend so much time in the Word. And elders and intercessors have endured testings and trials and come through in victory. But I find it hard to believe that a troubled, vacillating Christian could be precious to God.”

Even if you lived to be five hundred years old, you would not live long enough to please God by your own design. Perhaps the devil has convinced you that you have disappointed God and will never be able to please him. But that is a lie because you have been saved and forgiven.

Oh, thank God for Jesus! His grace enables you to stand in victory.

“But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:35-37).

The book of Genesis tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (see Genesis 18 and 19). We see a stunning example of God’s great mercy as he warned Abraham’s nephew, Lot, of impending doom on the city and provided a path of escape for him and his family. Lot warned his sons-in-law but they thought he was joking, and his wife was filled with indecision and looked back during their escape. But Lot and his daughters ultimately were saved.

“And while he lingered, the [angels] took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city” (Genesis 19:16).

The Bible calls Lot a righteous man (see 2 Peter 2:8-9) and he stands as a type of remnant believer in these last days. As the sins of our society mount toward heaven — sensuality, immorality and ever-bolder evil — America is ripe for destruction. If God’s Church today is righteous, it is only because of the blood of Jesus Christ, and not because of any goodness or morality he has seen in us. His sheer mercy came to us and pulled us out of judgment.

Think about it. When you were saved, the Spirit of God took you by the hand and pulled you out of your sins just as he led Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah. He set you outside the reach of wickedness and rebellion and brought you out of judgment. All because of his great mercy!

Francis Chan, the well-known author of Crazy Love and many more books, felt called of God to leave his megachurch in a lovely, affluent, suburban Californian town. Stepping out of financial security and comfort, he gathered a small group of believers together in the heart of San Francisco and began doing street ministry. Because he is so distinguished and recognized in Christian circles, he could have put up a few billboards, passed out flyers, and started a church with a few thousand people with little effort. But he did not want people from other churches to leave their churches and come to his — he wanted to win souls to Christ.

Francis Chan left everything behind for the sake of the gospel in order to live the realities of the book of Acts. How many of us have room in our daily lives for true New Testament living? So many are going about normal, adequate, watered-down Christian lives. At least, they think it’s normal because it is all they see around them so it becomes acceptable. To be something other than what they are would be considered abnormal.

Leonard Ravenhill, a renowned British pastor who died a couple of decades ago, said, “Christianity today is so subnormal that if any Christian began to act like a normal New Testament Christian, he would be considered abnormal.” 

It is true, Christianity today is more self-seeking than it has been in prior generations — more consumeristic, more materialistic. “What can I get out of church? What can I get out of God?” People have accepted Christ but they have not allowed him to really change their way of living.

The call of God for his people today is loving but urgent. He wants us to say to him, “I am an empty vessel, Lord. Please fill me and help me to walk in New Testament life. Whatever it costs, whatever it takes, God, I want to win souls.”  

Paul told the Colossians, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:12-14).

There is a reason we are called to live as Christ lived. Because the world will look at our lives, at the way we live, at the things we say and do, and reflect those images onto Jesus. They will see him as they see us. Nothing brings greater disgrace to the cause of Christ than people who claim to know him but live in anger and judgment and arrogance. People who live in sin and hypocrisy within the church.

And the reverse is also true. Nothing brings greater honor to Christ than people who exude a lifestyle of love and compassion and kindness. People who see others as Jesus sees them and treat other people the way that Jesus would treat them. People who live as Christ would live.

Every day you and I have to make that choice. It is already a given that our actions will reflect on Jesus, but what we reflect is a decision we have to make. A decision we make day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. Will we choose to live in grace and kindness and mercy? Will we choose forgiveness over retaliation? Or will we live in bitterness and hypocrisy?

What we decide makes all the difference in how the world reacts to God’s message of hope and salvation. We can be sure the world is watching — so choose wisely!

Nicky Cruz, internationally known evangelist and prolific author, turned to Jesus Christ from a life of violence and crime after meeting David Wilkerson in New York City in 1958. The story of his dramatic conversion was told first in The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson and then later in his own best-selling book Run, Baby, Run.