Looking Inside Out

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

The process of discipleship is about becoming students of Christ and practitioners of what He taught His disciples when He was here on earth. It is one thing to merely confess to be an adherent to the principles of discipleship taught in the bible and another to not only confess but also demonstrate through daily actions that you are an active believer of what you confess.Of all the parts of discipleship that I had trouble with it was mercy. I professed to believe in and ascribe to the principles of discipleship Jesus taught about. To see me in a typical day’s course of events you would have to look long and hard to see my belief in showing people mercy. If you were asked to define me by what you saw of me in that day, I would find it hard to believe that merciful would be in the top three descriptors used; in fact I doubt that it would be used in the top ten. Let’s just say I would be absolutely astounded to see it appear at all.I have struggled with mercy all my life. Where I have no problem receiving it, I did have an issue giving it. Grateful for it being given to me, I could not even understand why someone would grant it to me; even after having received mercy, in reflection had I been in their position I could not see myself acting in the same manner that they did and justify being merciful. There are times in my life that I just thought that if I showed mercy that I was preventing justice from taking place. I maintained the manner of thinking that if I showed mercy to someone I was preventing them from learning a valuable lesson in regards to consequences for their thoughts or actions. To me keeping someone from learning is to allow them to repeat the same action over and over. I took it upon myself to allow the rule and not the exception to be taught.Some people could look at this verse and say that it builds off of the principle of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That if we sow mercy to those we come in contact with that need it, then when we need mercy it will be sown into our lives. I have heard one person describe mercy (and other values) as a banking account of sorts. Every time we show mercy to someone we make a deposit into our mercy account. The more merciful we are the larger our mercy account grows. When the time comes that we need to be shown mercy we are able to reach into our account and make a withdrawal. Those who do not show mercy have no reserves to draw from and therefore cannot benefit from this principle. As it could be understood that Jesus was speaking in terms of the Golden rule here I think it is deeper than that; in saying that I don’t mean to complicate the simplicity of the statement, because it really is a simple principle.I think this verse is very nicely tied to the one that precedes it, “blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” If we search for it, we will find our fill of righteousness. That being said and accepted, then if we are filled with righteousness on the inside then everything that comes from our insides will be filled with righteousness as well. Mercy is given because it is the right thing to do. We were shown tremendous amounts of mercy through the salvation walk that Jesus took for us. Being a disciple is being an active practitioner of the teachings of our teacher. If He could so lovingly and freely show us mercy then it should be our desire to imitate Him in the truest form and give the mercy that we were so amazingly given.It was in this verse that I practically saw for the first time the litmus test for a true disciple of Christ—if a person’s inside match and is identical to their outside and what is seen can be found in Christ’s teachings in the bible, then they are true disciples. I can show mercy because it is the right thing to do or it is the “Christian” thing to do; but only when I show mercy because it is what I want to do, because it is all I know how to do will I be practicing true discipleship.

Father I thank you for your mercy—so undeserved yet so freely given. I pray Father that you would help my outside and inside look more like yours everyday. Thank you for Your faithfulness. Amen.