Mercy and Purity and Seeing God

May 23, 2010
Matthew 5:7, 8
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Does mercy mean "get taken advantage of"?

Before leaving the topic of mercy, we talked again about being taken advantage of. A common attitude is "Once or twice is okay, but not all the time from the same person!"

Discernment is the ability to sense underlying causes and motivations. God's Spirit helps us to discern what is best, and He can help us know what the correct response is to each plea for mercy.

Giving people exactly what they ask for may not be the most merciful thing in every situation. Perhaps people need help in getting their lives changed, so that they don't keep making the same mistakes that call for mercy again and again.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to show mercy just as God has shown us mercy. As one example, this may not mean giving money to a brother-in-law every time he's in financial trouble. But it does mean trying to help that brother-in-law learn how to manage money better.

Mercy demands our involvement, but does not mean that we subject ourselves to the specific demands of other people. It means that we treat people as they need to be treated, just as Jesus has done for us.

Purity

Purity brings up images of being free of corruption, or of being innocent. Spiritually, our hearts and minds should be longing for God's ways. This takes us right back to God's mercy. We are no longer innocent, and we have allowed ourselves to be corrupted. God offers not only to forgive us, but to clean us up.

Jesus promises that we can become single-minded toward God. Our actions may still be misunderstood. They may even be misguided, since our judgment is not perfect. But our motivation can still be pure. That is, we really can act with the best of intentions. Those intentions must be focused on doing what God wants us to do.

Purity of heart is to will one thing, said the Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard .

Seeing God

This verse offers an astounding promise: It is possible to see God.

The promise may refer to heaven someday in the future. That fits with promises elsewhere in the Bible. But we believe it also refers to our present lives. Followers of Jesus claim to sense God directly.

By sensing God, people describe understanding His will, knowing what He wants us to do, and seeing the world from His perspective. The class discussion stressed that this is more than "I think God wants me to do this." Class members have actually experienced times when they were certain that God had communicated directly with them. And, in contrast, there are also times when we realize that we have not sensed God recently. This is often a reminder that our focus is no longer just on God.

Discussion also pointed out that recognizing God around us can lead to a deeper desire for purity. And purity is not a one-time thing. We talked about our regular need for God's work in our hearts.

This verse may describe a cycle of Kingdom living. We believe Jesus's words and ask God to forgive us and to give us pure motives. As our hearts are made innocent, we are better able to sense God at work in our lives and in the world around us. And then that sense of God's presence makes us eager to stay pure, focused on Him.

There are more aspects of "pure hearts" and "seeing God" that we can explore, so our time together on the 30th will address this same verse. David is back in town, and is looking forward to leading the session.