The heart of God being merciful is well chronicled throughout Scripture, whether it is indirectly referenced through an outcome to God’s reaction and response to a sinner or someone who has lost their way, or how God has extended His compassion to someone who is suffering and in need of refuge. The Father and mercy can be seen throughout the Scripture.

The whole reason why we have this term of endearment for God, Father, is because Jesus taught us to call Him Father. In The Lord’s Prayer Jesus instructs us to pray “Our Father.” We’re not taught to call Him “the man upstairs” or “the big guy” or just to say God, as people have manipulated that. There’s one Father and there’s no one like Him. He’s incomparable. He’s Our Father.

As you study the Scriptures we have this great understanding to reach out to Him and call Him Father, and then we have other attributes and characteristics of God that help us in our prayer life, and our confidence in God. The central characteristic of all of God The Father’s characteristics is mercy. God is the Father of mercies. If you’ve professed your faith in Christ He’s your Father, and it is this relationship of child and Father that is central, and in the midst of that is looking to the Father to Receive The Father’s Mercy.

Freedom is such an important characteristic of who we are, and who we are as a country. Today in New Dorp we were reminded of the sacrifices that have been made to preserve this freedom that we have in the United States with a memorial run that was held in honor of Staff Sergeant Michael Ollis. While serving his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, Staff Sergeant Ellis died will protecting a Polish soldier from a suicide bomber. Running into danger, Ollis covered and shielded the soldier from sudden death. Ollis’ heroic actions are what American freedom is build on.

Here in the United States, it is a time for all of us to reflect on how blessed we are to live in this country, and the gift we have to live in freedom. Just as many soldiers like Staff Sergeant Michael Ollis have served and sacrificed so that we may have national freedom, there is One who sacrificed Himself to set us free spiritually. His name is Jesus. Through God’s free gift of salvation that you need to accept, God demonstrated His mercy, setting you free from your past, your sin, chains that hold you down, and from death. This is all through Jesus’ merciful sacrificial death on the cross. For whatever is holding you captive, because of Jesus, there is freedom in God’s mercy.

God has a heart of mercy. The greatest display of His mercy is the cross. For those who place their faith in Jesus Christ, the greatest result and power of His mercy is that they’ve been washed clean of their sins. Not only have they been guaranteed a home in heaven, but they have been set free from sin. This mercy from sin is available to all who place their faith in Christ.

Even after accepting Jesus as Lord, and Savior, you can find yourself wondering and asking “Do I still have the sink of my sin?” or “Do I still have the stench of my rotten decisions?” You can find yourself not sure where you stand. Mercy explains exactly where you stand. Instead of finding ways to cover up the stink and stench of sin, we have mercy. For all of our sins, we can be washed in God’s mercy.

God desires to cover you in mercy, especially when you are going through trials, turmoil, temptations, and tribulations. This life is going to be filled with trouble. Even Jesus Himself said it will be. We live in very troubling times nationally, internationally, as well as in our own hearts and our own homes. This is why for your sins, your storms, and your struggles you want to seek God’s covering of mercy.

When you study the character of God, there’s no greater quality than the mercy of God. The grace of God, love of God, and goodness of God, all find their roots in His unconditional and never-ending mercies. When you think about your life, the struggles you go through, the shame you feel that you don’t tell anyone else about, the struggles, strains, and sins that you have; in all of these realities of life, you have one single prayer that God wants you to bring to Him. That prayer is a prayer of mercy.

God’s most important attribute is His mercy. It’s because of God’s blessing of mercy that you enjoy forgiveness, find faith, help friends, and grow closer to the Lord. Mercy helps you deal with difficult people, discouraging problems, and draining pressures that seem to routinely be a part of your life. God has chosen mercy to be the very cure for your fears, insecurities, doubts, and worries. God’s mercy is paramount in understanding your relationship with Him. Given the importance of mercy, it should be of no surprise that God calls you to representative His mercy to others. Not only are you to receive mercy, but God has called you to be His representative of mercy.

In the Bible, reminders of God’s mercies renewing daily are nestled right in the middle of a very hard season for God’s people. If you find yourself as one of God’s people, and you are experiencing great difficulties, turmoil, hardships, unexplainable things, things that you would think God’s people shouldn’t have to endure, then you find yourself within the context of the book of Lamentations.

Before you can truly see the greatness of God’s mercies despite our sin, an understanding of how serious sin is to God is needed. Looking at Israel in the Old Testament and using that as a parallel to your own life, you will find yourself sensing the heaviness of you own sin, being in awe before the holiness of God, who created us; and you can live in hope because of Jesus Christ, who went to the cross to take God’s wrath in your place. That is why we can say to God great is thy faithfulness, because God grants us new mercies every morning.

When we fail, it’s human nature to want to revert to our old ways, or to go back to comfort zones. We’ve all done something that we’ve regretted, we’ve said we would do something and have done the opposite. We’ve let someone down at one point or another. We’ve felt like we’ve let God down. We’re all human, we’re all sinners, we all stumble, and we all fall. The good news is that when we do fail, God is a merciful God.

When we fail, and fall short; God’s mercy is there not only to forgive us, but to use our failures and shortcomings for good in the future. Accepting Christ doesn’t mean that life is going to be perfect. There will be stones along the way that can cause us to trip or block our path. The question though, is whether we let those stones be used as stepping stones to advance from, or if we let them be our tombstones where we remain. When you stumble, and fall, and fall; that is where you need to look to God’s mercy.

The most powerful and significant day in world history, every promise in Scripture, every christian tradition we partake in, every prayer of sincerity that we offer up, every plea for forgiveness of sin that we ask the Heavenly Father of, every conviction of comfort that we seek, and every ounce of hope that we have in heaven finds its roots in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The resurrection is the most magnanimous event that has ever taken place on the face of the earth. History records this event, medical science comes alongside and verifies the evidence, and the record of God, which is the Bible, for 2000 plus years has preserved this truth that we hold in our hearts. Every time you write a check, send an email that has a date stamp on it, or celebrate a birthday you are referencing the resurrection. The year is 2017, but 2017 from what? Because 2017 years from the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This event reverberated in hell. The resurrection of Jesus Christ sent death and sin their final deathblows. It silenced the boast of the Devil himself. We gather every Sunday, the first day of the week, to give honor and praise to God, and most importantly to remember this centerpiece of our salvation. Everything that we celebrate, finds its center in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Supporting all of this is the most endearing quality and attribute of God that you can find as you study the Scriptures. That quality is God’s mercy. All of grace, love, comfort, forgiveness, and hope finds its center in the mercy of Almighty God.

People think God quality is that He is mean. That’s a misconception of God. Some say, “God’s mean He just wants to get even with me.” or “I’m having a lousy day. It’s God’s fault, He’s doing this to me.” If God wanted to get even with us, He could turn you into smoke in a second. He’s not going to cause your keys to go missing, or for you to have a bad hair day, or for someone to insult you. That’s not God. God is not mean, He is merciful.

God has an abundance of mercy. He’s well stocked in mercy. You cannot exhaust the mercies of God. His mercies even renew each day. It is all about God’s mercy. God’s unmerited kindness that has restricted the punishment, and released provision. That is why as we celebrate Easter, it is important to make the choice to be a person living in the mercy of Jesus.

Before we celebrate the empty tomb of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday, we must remember with reverence and respect, so great a salvation that has been afforded to us by the Lord Jesus Christ because of His sacrificial death on the cross.

All of the grace that has been afforded to us, the unconditional love that we sing about, the peace that has been made with God, the faith that we hold to be true in our hearts, the hope we have in eternal life, the trust in God’s sovereignty, the knowledge of His compassion and of His kindness; is all undergirded by the chief quality and attribute of Almighty God. It’s the quality that is the opposite of what some may say God is. God isn’t some mean cosmic cop in the sky looking to get even with you. The truth is that God is merciful. It is God’s chief quality, and the greatest display of God’s mercy is the cross.

The message of the cross isn’t one of religious instruction, or holy observance for self-edification. The message of the cross is one of mercy. That the mercy of Christ came running down for all to experience and drink from. That this mercy can reach the person who’s the furthest from the cross, or the person who thinks they are the closest. This mercy levels the ground at the foot of the cross. This message of mercy says that all are welcome. It sobers up the greatest of sinners, and humbles the biggest of hypocrites, and pierces the thickest of skulls and hearts like ours. The context of Good Friday prepares us for this moment This moment of the Mercy Of The Cross.