Tag: Mercy

YOU ARE THE MAN

Posted on by Northstar Devotional

“So the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to tell David this story: “There were two men in a certain town. One was rich, and one was poor. The rich man owned a great many sheep and cattle. The poor man owned nothing but one little lamb he had bought. He raised that little lamb, and it grew up with his children. It ate from the man’s own plate and drank from his cup. He cuddled it in his arms like a baby daughter. One day a guest arrived at the home of the rich man. But instead of killing an animal from his own flock or herd, he took the poor man’s lamb and killed it and prepared it for his guest.” David was furious. “As surely as the Lord lives,” he vowed, “any man who would do such a thing deserves to die! He must repay four lambs to the poor man for the one he stole and for having no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man!… – 2 Samuel 12:1-7.

Have you ever done something so premeditated and wrong that you could get what you wanted?  I mean you planned to the “T “ how you were going to get away with it and everything.  I think if we all go back to our past we could possibly think of one instance where we wanted something, did something, and maybe even hurt somebody for our own selfish gain.  David did that very thing. Yes, the same David the Bible calls “a man after God’s own heart.” ( 1 Samuel 13:14)

David thought he had gotten away with murder. After all, he was the king and able to cover his tracks well. But no one can escape the eye of God. The Lord sent His prophet Nathan with a message. Nathan did not confront David directly. Instead, he told the story of a rich man with lots of sheep and cattle and a poor man who owned one precious lamb. The wealthy man took the lamb from the poor man and cooked it for his guest. On hearing the story, David was furious and said, “any man who would do such a thing deserves to die.” In one of the most famous verses in Scripture, Nathan turned the story on David and proclaimed, “You are tthat man!” Nathan’s parable had gotten under David’s defenses and allowed him to see his actions from God’s perspective. Convicted by the guilt of what he had done, David repented. He confessed, “I have sinned against the LORD” (v. 13).

The reality is that we cannot hide our sins from God. We may hide it from our neighbor, our spouse, or our children; but we will never hide it from God.  It does not take many sins to leave an eternal mark on a life, a family, a community, or a nation. David learned this harsh lesson. While sin always carries a great price tag, it does not have to be as bad as it could be.

We often act as though God is shocked to discover that we make mistakes. God has a big eraser. He uses it to keep our records clean and clear.

If you are thinking about something you ought not to do, pray about it.  We all need a Nathan in our life who will confront us when we are doing wrong.  Can you be a Nathan to someone else?  We as Christians should be able to go to each other in love so that we can bring ourselves and others back to where God wants us.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Have you ever felt like “you are the man?” If so, what did you do about it?
  2. What can we do this week to keep from falling into sin’s trap?

ACCEPTING OTHERS LIKE JESUS ACCEPTED YOU

Posted on by Northstar Devotional

“Because of his grace he made us right in his sight and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life.” – Titus 3:7 “

Thank heaven for grace. Titus 3:7 tells us we are made right by His grace. It’s not that we are suddenly holy and righteous. It’s not that we never sin. Basically, God is going to make us acceptable by His grace, not on our qualities or achievements.

Think about that for a few moments. The Bible says that God chose to accept us. He chose to accept us and make us acceptable to God. It’s totally undeserved. But, He chose to do it. You may say, “Wait a minute! God chose me?” Yes.  God accepts you, loves you, and created you. God sent his Son to die for each of us. He chose us. We matter to Him. So it really doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks.  Romans 15:7 “Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.”

Jesus Christ accepts you completely. That doesn’t mean He approves of everything we do. He doesn’t, but He accepts us. If we want to accept people like Jesus accepts us then we need to accept someone without approving of what they do. Without approving of their lifestyle, without approving of the way they’re living. Or they have a different opinion on important subjects.

A good example of acceptance is the story of the woman caught in adultery.  Some religious leaders who were trying to trap Jesus brought her before Jesus. The woman was caught cheating on her husband and her accusers wanted to know what Jesus was going to do about it. Jesus looks at all of the accusers and says, “…let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” (John 8:7)  One by one, they leave, because none of them were without sin. What is Jesus doing here? He’s giving acceptance, not approval. He didn’t approve of what she was doing, but He accepted her.

Then in the private, one on one, after everybody’s gone, John 8:10-11 tells what happened in that moment: “Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

Is that it? Could we have experienced that and not had some kind of reproof, blame, or judgment? Would we not be tempted to minister some sort of reproach for the sin of adultery?  Wouldn’t we at least give that disappointed look? Probably… but not Jesus. He didn’t make her feel guilty. He told her to go sin no more, but He accepted her. He showed her grace and mercy and love.

Can we do the same?

Discussion Questions:

  1. How does Jesus treat those who are given to Him? Read John 6:37. What makes God’s acceptance of us amazing?
  2. How should we accept others as stated in Romans 15:7? What are some ways to show acceptance to people?

Blessed Are The Merciful

Posted on by Northstar Devotional

“A man does not get grace till he comes down to the ground, till he sees he needs grace. When a man stoops to the dust and acknowledges that he needs mercy, then it is that the Lord will give him grace.” –  Dwight L. Moody.

The mercy of God is one of the most precious gifts we will ever receive. It is a prominent theme throughout the Bible. If you want to know who God really is, if you want to peek into His heart, don’t dwell on His incalculable power or His wrath. Instead, look at His mercy. We are prone to see God’s mercy as peripheral or incidental to who He is. But if we let the Scriptures have their say, we will see that when God shows His mercy in ways we can only imagine.

There are wonderful examples of God’s mercy in the Bible. Today, we look at one.  This story showcases a God who does not remain “in the clouds,” but is active in the lives of His people.

It is the story of the widow found in 2 Kings 4:1-7. This passage tells us the story of the widow that lost her husband and was faced with debts she couldn’t pay, Debt collectors will take her sons and make them slaves to serve as payback for the money the late husband was owing them. She was depressed, devastated, and frustrated, but God had mercy on her and brought Elisha her way. Elisha asked her if she had anything in the house and she replied “Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil.” Elisha told her to borrow all the empty jars she can from friends and neighbors, then she should go inside the house shut the door behind her, and pour olive oil from the flask into the jars setting each one aside when it is filled. She did as she was instructed and soon every jar is full. Elisha told her to“sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.” This is a great example of mercy because she had no help, nobody was ready to help her condition nor help her pay her debts, but God looked on her with mercy.

The rest of the Bible takes up this same theme. God is not only merciful, he is “rich is mercy” (Ephesians 2:4). It is because of God’s mercy that we are saved. “he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” (Titus 3:5)

Mercy triumphed over judgment when Christ died for sinners, to rescue us from the condemnation we surely deserved. That same mercy triumphs still as our Holy Father looks at us and sees the faultless and unblemished image of His perfect Son. It was and still is the most extraordinary display of mercy in history. We are sinful people and we absolutely do not deserve the goodness and love our Father shows us, but each and every time we stray He relentlessly calls us back to Him and shows us incomprehensible grace and mercy.

Furthermore, God’s mercy for the believer isn’t just a single one-off act. Psalm 23 gives us the assurance that “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Whatever situation you’re in today, you can rest in God’s mercy.

Discussion Questions:

  1. God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”  (Matthew 5.7). How are the merciful blessed? What does this look like? Have you experienced this? When? 
  2. How effective are you at being a conduit for passing on the mercy God has shown you to other people?  
  3. If you were to incorporate mercy into your own life, how would the next week be different?   

The Attributes Of God – The Grace Of God

Posted on by Northstar Devotional

What are God’s attributes? Each Friday we will look at an attribute of God. This week, the grace of God. Grace is the bestowal of blessing unearned or unmerited. When we speak of God’s grace, we speak of those wonderful gifts, like salvation, that no man deserves but God grants anyway.

“But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ….God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.” – Romans 5:15, 20.

While all of God’s attributes should evoke a sense of awe, humility, and wonder, grace is one of the most astounding and life-transforming aspects of God’s character. From the beginning of time, God has chosen to give us grace rather than His wrath. Time and time again, we’ve turned our backs on Him, and yet “ He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.” (Ephesians 1:7)  

Both the Old and New Testaments describe God’s character as gracious, meaning that He is full of grace and kindness. This is how God described Himself to Moses: “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6-7). King David also wrote about God’s graciousness: “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.” (Psalm 145:8-9 NIV). King Hezekiah proclaimed that “…for the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate… ” (2 Chronicles 30:9 NIV). The apostle Peter called God “the God of all grace.” (1 Peter 5:10)

Each morning we wake up is a show of God’s grace. If you’re able to drive to work in a car or have money to take the bus, those are displays of God’s grace and mercy. Jesus teaches us that God doesn’t hoard good. He doesn’t hoard His grace or give it out to a limited number of special people. God demonstrates a desire for everyone to experience His grace. This includes “those people who are annoying maddening or just bad.” In Jesus’ time, the so-called “bad people” were tax collectors, sinners, Samaritans, and Gentiles. But Jesus welcomed these people and forgave them. Jesus puts God’s grace on display to humankind.

It’s God’s grace that equips you. It’s God’s grace that holds you. It’s God’s grace that grants you a relationship with Him and eternal life with Him.  

As God’s grace works in our lives, we learn how to extend it to others. Through our actions, the grace of God blesses those who come in contact with us and become a testimony to others.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Does grace erase the consequences of wrongdoing? Why or why not? 
  2. How might your life change if you were to accept God’s free gift of grace, love, forgiveness, and mercy?

The Attributes Of God – God Is Just And Merciful

Posted on by Northstar Devotional

What are God’s attributes? When we talk about the attributes of God, we are trying to answer questions like, Who is God, What is God like, and What kind of God is He? An attribute of God is something true about Him. Each Friday we will look at the attributes of God. This week, God is just.

“Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” – Isaiah 30:18 (ESV). 

We have been talking each Friday about the attributes of God. The problem is there are not enough Fridays in our lifetimes to talk about the attributes of God, the glories of God, and the perfections of God. “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.” (Psalm 146:3) Try as we will, we will never unwrap the glories of God as revealed in Scripture.

In Isaiah 30:18 we see two characteristics of God: His mercy and His justice. God is powerful and just. This verse reveals so much about God’s character and how good He is. This verse gives us direction in how we are to live and reveals that God waits. He waits to be gracious. Let that sink in for a moment. The Lord waits to be gracious to you. He longs to pour out His favor and show you mercy. Isaiah 30:15 reveals why He waits, “This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength…”

But God is a God of justice. He is absolutely just. God cannot be fooled. Because He is all-knowing and ever-present, He has all the facts at His disposal. He knows the circumstances and motives, so His decisions are always based on absolute truth. God is also a perfect judge. “Everything He does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright He is!” (Deuteronomy 32:4)  

Justice is one of the pillars of society, but there are times when justice is compromised by people seeking personal gain. But while it is possible to manipulate justice in our courts, we cannot manipulate God’s justice. Because He is a just God, His verdict will always be right. King David said, “For the righteous Lord loves justice…” (Psalm 11:7)

Because God is just, He will always treat you fairly. However, as the holy and righteous creator and sovereign of the universe, God cannot ignore any act of sin. The psalmist writes, “You spread out our sins before You — our secret sins — and You see them all… Who can comprehend the power of Your anger? Your wrath is as awesome as the fear You deserve.” (Psalm 90:8,11)  

“God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.” (Ecclesiastes 12:14)

Discussion Questions:

  1. Has there ever been a time when your idea of justice and God’s idea of justice were different? How did you reconcile those feelings? 
  2. Does justice mean forgive and forget? Why is it important that God confronts evil and sin and holds people accountable?

We Are Not Statistics

Posted on by Wes M. Ward

“ For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” –   1 Corinthians 9:19-23

Maria Belon, the mother in The Impossible writes: “”They say my name softly. Yell it louder. I’m already walking towards the tunnel. …. ‘Mama, mama, wake up.  Did you get on the same wave as I did?'” Simon is covered in mud. Tomas with his chubby cheeks and tear-streaked face is at his side. He has scratches and blood. He is very sad and very serious. ‘Ma, aren’t you happy to see us?’” Huge swells of love and sadness pool just behind her eyes. She guesses she has always been like that but facing death made it all the more intense.

The tsunami resulted in at least 227,898 fatalities. The Belon family very nearly were additional statistics. But those statistics are people. How do we look at the lost? Are they statistics? Are they simply additional numbers in the total number of people who do not attend church or believe in Jesus Christ? Are those we know just part of that total?  And the still bigger question is, do we treat them as statistics?  Do they become numbers? It is difficult when the total numbers are so large and it seems your efforts won’t make much of a difference. There you are wrong. It is worth the effort to win one person to Jesus. But it often requires more work than we expect. 

You meet someone and after a few conversations – at work, or school or in the neighborhood – you invite the person to church. They explain that they have a lot going on, but thanks for the invite anyway. What they are actually saying is probably something like this: “Since you are not taking an interest in what interests me, how do you expect me to take an interest in what interests you.”

It is great that we invite someone to church but is that as far as our Christian interest extends? It’s almost like we have fulfilled our responsibilities to them.  They probably feel like an obligatory target or worse a statistic. Most people will not drop all their beliefs just to accept yours. We need to show an interest in what’s interesting to them instead of expecting them to be interested in Jesus the first time we mention the Savior’s name.  Some people believe that spending time with non-believers is conforming to the world. (Romans 12:2)   

What was Jesus major secret of being effective? He loved sinners. The religious leaders got upset when He was talking and eating with sinners. But Jesus said that he “…came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”(Matt. 9:10-13).

In Luke 15: 1-7, answering the charges that if He was really spiritual he would not be eating with sinners, Jesus said, “ if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?” “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

People matter to God so they should matter to us.  They are not statistics. God Himself became a man and left us an example of how we should care for the lost, then exhorted us to follow in His steps.  Jesus stated His purpose, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10). We should make His mission our mission.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How do you view those people you know who are far from the heart of God? How invested are you in your relationship with people you know who are far from the heart of God?
  2. Do you find it difficult to speak to others about God in this day and age? Why or why not?
  3. What has Jesus done in your life that you can share with others? How can you reveal God’s grace and mercy to others?
  4. Pray and ask God to provide you the wisdom to seize on the opportunities and possibilities He provides us with those far from the heart of God.