The Mercy of God in Salvation

The Mercy of God in Salvation

Psalm 119 -41

My personal thoughts on this particular passage...

41. Your salvation. This is the sum and crown of all mercies; deliverance from all evil, both now and forever more. This is the first mention of salvation in this Psalm, and it is joined with mercy. "For by grace you have been saved (Eph 2:8). What a mass of mercies is heaped together in the one salvation of our Lord Jesus! It includes the mercies that spared us before our conversion. Then there is calling mercy, the regenerating mercy, and the pardoning mercy. Nor can we exclude from complete salvation the many mercies that are needed to conduct the believer safe to glory. (quote  by Charles Spurgeon).

When I look back on my life, in retrospect, I see many of God's mercies toward me, even before I knew Him.  There was more than one instance in my life where I should have died, but by God's intervention and mercy, I didn't.  Even in many other circumstances I have experienced God's mercies, although I may not always have recognized them, at that time, as coming from Him.  As we know, God often uses other people to carry some of these mercies to us.  Whatever sources or tools God chooses to use, we need to remember who put it into the hearts of the people, at that specific time of need, to be there for another.  The original source of kindness and mercy is always from God.

The greatest mercy is that God has been watching over us, preserving us, as well as preparing us by bringing particular people, and circumstances into our lives.  Why?  He loves us as a Father and always had a plan to adopt us as His children.  First, though, because He is holy and cannot tolerate sin in His presence, our Triune God planned a way of freeing us of our sin debt and providing us with His Son's perfect righteousness.  He did this  so  that we could be reconciled and have a personal intimate relationship with the Father through Christ Jesus, enabled and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

God is patient with us and will reveal Himself bit by bit to us, over many years, and often through many tears. He knows exactly what circumstances we need, and how long it will take for us to recognize we are sinners in need of a Savior.  We cannot save ourselves through any number of good works, and we can never be good enough by our own efforts. We must recognize and believe His Word is true and there is only one Savior under heaven who can save, and that is Jesus Christ, (Acts 4:12)  God's  only Son.  Romans 10:17  says  "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ." 

For myself, before my heart was regenerated I knew a little about Jesus and  went to church for awhile, but I did not have a strong desire to live for Him only.  I didn’t even know what that meant.  I was still living for worldly pleasures.  In 1970  I experienced a lot of very bad occultic bloody flashbacks, some of which involved "a" Jesus. That  did a number on me. Later, it was through working out and healing from my past,  I was driven to  studying the Bible to untangle much twisted Scripture and to find out the truth who Jesus really was and what He was really like.  I put a lot of effort and time in learning doctrines of the Bible and as much as I could about Jesus, Himself.  It was years later while riding in a car on the way home from church that a light bulb went on. It just flashed in my mind, that Jesus was God.  I don’t know why I never noticed that while searching, or even how I could have missed it.  I was delivered that night through the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ and was freed to worship Him.  My life has changed from that time and I know it.  The reason I was studying the Bible was to find out what Jesus was really like and what the Bible said about Him, and wanting to know what the main doctrines about Him where. I found the true, genuine Jesus in my search.  Later, I was excited to find out that from Genesis to Revelation is actually mainly about Jesus.  From the time of my deliverance I have gained an insatiable appetite for God’s Word and the desire to share it with others.    I hope everyone will be able to experience this.  Many or most of you probably already understand this joy and delight in God’s Word, which is really a treasure chest of diamonds and precious jewels.

After we have come to a saving faith in Christ Jesus we shall see mercy after mercy, for they are new every morning (Lam.3:22,23).  We have a new living hope and that is Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col.1:27).  God's Word becomes a delight as we feed on it daily and drink of His Holy Spirit.  As we are progressively being transformed through the renewing of our mind (attitudes), dying to sin in our lives, and surrendering each day to Him we will witness His mercies each time we mess up.  His mercy will not let us go. He will bring into our life whatever is necessary for our continued sanctification.  Yes, we were sanctified, but we continue to grow in sanctification as we persevere in our faith. I believe it is all part of working out in our life what Christ has already given us. It is God who works in us to will and act according to His good purpose  (Philippians 2:12,13). We will still have tests and trials to go through before we go home, but we never need to go through them alone, or in our own strength.  He walks us through them.  He has become our Anchor, and our faith will be unmovable as we keep our eyes and heart fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who went before us, enduring the cross…for the joy set before Him.

 

 

Annie~