Every time you show mercy, every time you are kind and gracious to another believer, you are giving comfort.
A man from our church stopped me after a recent service and said, “Brother Wilkerson, let me tell you why I attend this church. My ninety-year-old mother just recently passed away. For the past four years, she was bedridden, and I took care of her. At the church I used to attend, I had to leave Sunday service early to go and tend to her. After a while, the pastor got tired of it, and before the whole congregation, he told me, ‘If you’re going to go, go now, before I start to preach.’”
Then the man said, “Here at Times Square Church, no one has ever said a word to me about leaving early. That may seem like a small thing to you, but to me, it’s a very big thing. I have not had to explain to anyone here that I was going to leave early to get home and take care of my mother."
Mercy must be shown in ordinary, day-to-day things. Sometimes, mercy can be as simple as a smile that conveys understanding or an arm around someone’s shoulder. It can be as simple as a sympathetic countenance or a word to someone who is hurting.
You can never offer mercy if you are constantly thinking of yourself. How can you offer comfort to others when you have not yet learned to draw comfort in God’s mercy to you?
Scripture teaches, “Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation” (2 Corinthians 1:4-6, NKJV).
Merciful Christians are the Lord’s comforters. They can show and speak mercy and lovingkindness because they have experienced the incredible comfort of God’s mercy.