{"id":282,"date":"2011-05-06T11:27:35","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T18:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/faithmile.com\/?p=282"},"modified":"2011-05-06T11:27:35","modified_gmt":"2011-05-06T18:27:35","slug":"our-merciful-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/?p=282","title":{"rendered":"Our Merciful God"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh the king of Egypt.
(Dt 7:7-8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve seen this scripture more times than I can count, and I knew it was a representation of God\u2019s mercy, but today, it seems as if I read it for the first time. God, our God, has ALWAYS wanted to bless people. From the creation of the world, the gift of Eden, the gift of marriage and even the tree of life, God\u2019s will has been that mankind was blessed. Before Christ, God created a way for people to atone for sin through sacrifice, and to restore a relationship with him through obedience. Then, he made promises to one or two men that spanned generations. He made covenants and promises to the Jews, but he included \u201cthe foreigner among you\u201d in the promises as well. <\/p>\n

\nOf religions that believe in a God, only the Abrahmic God (ours) appears to love humanity in this way. He is not capricious and does not demand worship for the purpose of asserting his authority and dominion, but calls us to repentance when we sin against him and others and desires worship as obedience and service. Our God desires to lead us on paths of righteousness. Our God desires justice, mercy, and love for him and for one another. While a lot of religions call their adherents to ethical living, these make it seems that the people are capable of perfect lives, and there is no provision for ultimate forgiveness. As a result, many people end up being \u201cgood enough\u201d but that leads to pride in their own accomplishments. God says that we are all sinners, because the comparison isn\u2019t to ourselves, it\u2019s to him and he is perfect. This leaves no room for pride, and the good works of Christians are not done to earn God\u2019s love and favor (that is freely given) but to honor the place we have in the divine family as joint-heirs with Christ.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen the bible says that God\u2019s yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matt 11:30), it doesn\u2019t mean that we won\u2019t ever experience life\u2019s troubles. It means the burden of salvation is light and the carrying out of the Christian life is easy. That is because of the quote above in Deuteronomy. God didn\u2019t choose Israel \u2013 or us \u2013 because of our own accomplishments, qualifications or attributes. In God, the requirements to reconciliation are easy: just believe. It\u2019s already done. It can\u2019t be earned. There is no \u201cburden\u201d on us whatsoever. God, in Christ, has done EVERYTHING already. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nBelieve God. Receive Christ. Rest in mercy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313,"href":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithmile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}