The Mercy of God's Compassion

“Who remembered us in our lowly state,
For His mercy endures forever;
And rescued us from our enemies,
For His mercy endures forever;
Who gives food to all flesh,
For His mercy endures forever.
Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven!
For His mercy endures forever. - Psalm 136:23-26

As the psalmist writes these words, he is thinking back to God's physical deliverance of the Jewish people. They were an insignificant people group at the beginning of their story, and God mightily rescued them and gave them a homeland.

We are not living in that same context today, so how does God rescue us today? Does He promise that those who follow Him will be free from pain, suffering, and need? The fact that Jesus tells His followers, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up His cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9: 23) seems to point to the fact that God is not promising a life of ease. The cross was a means of execution meant to humiliate and denigrate the one being executed. Jesus is not calling His followers to a life where everything goes well for them, but to a life where they will follow Him at any cost.

So, back to the question, how does God rescue us today? What is He rescuing us from? He is rescuing us from living a life in rebellion against Him. He is rescuing us from serving our own agendas and our own ambitions. He rescues us from our sin and the consequences of that sin. He redeems us to Himself through the sacrifice that Jesus Himself made on the cross. Jesus died on our behalf on that cross and rose victorious over death. Through Him we can have a relationship with God. Through Him we can submit to God's right and power to call the shots in our life. Through Jesus, we can now know freedom from sin and its consequences. Jesus equips us to become more like Himself and to grow in kindness and goodness, in love and joy and peace, in faithfulness and patience, in self-control and gentleness. He rescues us from our selfish ways and works in us to make us look more like Him.

He provides for our spiritual deliverance. Not only does He care about our spiritual needs, but He also promises to be with us. We gain a relationship with Him. Just as the psalmist praised God for His physical deliverance of the Jewish people, so we also should praise God for His spiritual deliverance. We can echo what Paul says in Ephesians 1:3-8, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”

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