Moses told the Israelites that the Lord, their God was a merciful God and that He would never abandon them, nor forget the covenant that He had established with them. Paul tells us that though we were all dead (spiritually), God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ Jesus. And finally, Peter tells us,

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you might declare the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 1Pe.2:9,10

No matter how you slice it; God is full of mercy. And because He is full of mercy we can surmise that His mercy is as infinite as He is. Therefore, God’s mercy will never end. A. W. Tozer said it the best in his study on the attributes of God: “Mercy never began to be, but from eternity was; so it will never cease to be… As judgment is God’s justice confronting moral inequity, so mercy is the goodness of God confronting human suffering and guilt. Were there no guilt in the world, no pain and no tears, God would yet be infinitely merciful; but His mercy might well remain hidden in His heart, unknown to the created universe.” Years ago, while I was working at Clow, a deer had been spooked out of the nearby woods and right into the factory! It frantically tried to find its way out and in the process ran between the pipe piles. Well, the poor thing picked the wrong piles. The two piles were not exactly lined up parallel with each other, but were closer to each other at one end forming a “V.” The deer ran so hard through those pipes, that he got stuck, jammed at the shoulders by the pipe. He kicked about, twisting as much as he could. He cried out and even tried to back out, but he wasn’t budging. What I noticed was the deer’s determination to continue in the way he was going. He thought that was the way out, yet I knew that the more he moved forward the more stuck he would become. Nevertheless, he was moving forward even if the iron pipe began to tear away at his hide. He also wanted no part of our help. Every time we would get close he panicked all the more. He didn’t realize that we were trying to help him; we were trying to set him free. This is the best analogy that I could come up with as far as man receiving the mercy of God. You see, God sees the trouble that we are in and He fully understands our dilemma. He moves in mercy towards us but we think we know better than Him on how we need to remedy our situation. Sometimes we are so determined to go our way (just like the deer) that we get ourselves jammed up even more. We try to justify our actions and pretend that our problems are not as bad as they appear. We blame others for our circumstances to lessen our guilt and shame. We are stuck fast and the predicament is like quicksand. God throws a lifeline but we are looking for something else! If we don’t think we need His help, why on earth would we look for His lifeline? I think that we would see more of the mercy of God if we saw our condition more like He sees it. The other day a man called to see if the church could purchase a battery for his girlfriend’s car. He explained that they have all their money wrapped up in the purchase of their new house. Have you noticed how people in this day and age think that the church is here to help people out of their temporal problems but when it comes to their souls… well, they will be just fine, thank you very much. In other words, “Help me out of this pickle, but don’t confront me with Jesus Christ.” Listen, I’ve got news for the world; Jesus Christ is the merciful lifeline that God throws out to us and everybody that sees Him as such will receive that mercy. For everyone that calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!