God's Tender Mercy

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

   GOD’S TENDER MERCY

Luke 1:67-80

67 His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

 68 "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. 69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David 70(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),  71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us— 72 to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, 73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham: 74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, 77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven 79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace."

80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel.

NIV

 

We do have the knowledge of our salvation through the forgiveness of our sins, because of the blood of Jesus, for as we already know there is no forgiveness of sin without shedding of blood. All this, our salvation, the forgiveness of our sins is because of the tender mercy of our God. It is interesting that Zechariah uses the term tender in conjunction with the mercy of God, but then he is prophesying as inspired by the Holy Spirit who has filled him. Therefore, God is using the term “tender” to define His mercy.  The Greek word translated as tender is splangchnon which is where we get the English word spleen, or is the word used for bowels, intestines, and by implication the heart, lungs, liver, etc. In order words God’s mercy is not an intellectual mercy, God did not decide to have mercy on us by sending His Son to die on the cross for our sins. His mercy comes from deep within Himself, it is His character, who He is, out of his divine love comes His merciful act toward us sending the rising sun ( Jesus) from heaven. Jesus said that he is the Light of the world. The physical sun gives light to the world as it rises in the East. But Jesus is the Rising Son from heaven. It is Jesus who shown His light into the darkness in which we live under the shadow of death. It is the Light of Jesus who shows us the way to the path of peace. As we have known for some time, this is peace with God, so that we can be tranquil within our souls, assured of our salvation, thus fearing nothing from God, and content with whatever our lot is in life, whatsoever that is. But here is where the rubber meets the road in our lives. Of course, we can never have the same kind of tender mercy that God has toward us, but would it be possible for us to have a form of tender mercy toward those in need of salvation? That is our love is the driving force of our tender mercy toward others. Mercy does not come from our thinking we should show mercy, but it must come from splangchnon, deep within us, from our inner person, as we reflect the glory of God. It just may be that we humans are simply not capable of tender mercy, but we can have compassion on the lost, and we can give witness to how God has shown us His tender mercy.