MERCY or
JUSTICE?
The Four Questions…
1) What if I told you that your youngest child was murdered? Would you want mercy or justice for the perpetrator?
2)
What if I told
you that the murderer was your oldest child?
Would you want mercy or justice for the perpetrator?
3)
What if I told
you that you are guilty of the murder of the only begotten Son of God? Would you want mercy or justice as
the perpetrator?
4)
What if I told
you that you had a daughter—your only daughter—the apple of your eye, who has
never given you a moment’s grief. Tonight, you have your tux hanging in the
closet, because tomorrow you are scheduled to walk your daughter down the aisle
and give her away to someone whom you approve. If you’re the mother, you have
your new dress hanging next to the gown that you have been planning and
preparing for since the first time she held her in her arms. But tonight, your
daughter is at a bachelorette party with her peers and they talk her into
having “one-for-the-road,” the first ever in her life. Two, three, four, five, six, seven drinks
later, while on her way home, she wipes out a school bus full of little
children on their way to camp. Everybody aboard the bus dies in a fiery
inferno, but you daughter survives.
Do you want mercy or justice
for your daughter? What do those that are related to those who were on
bus want?
The carnal heart has an “ingrained
sense of justice”—as long as it doesn’t apply to them or theirs. That is
self-righteousness and hypocrisy!
Furthermore, Satan knows that God will only forgive us according to our
willingness to forgive others. The irony of the whole thing is, “we’re all
family.”
As we have received God’s mercy, so
are we to bestow the same mercy towards others.
“Freely you have received, freely give.”
We can hate the sin, but we must love the sinner, for “we war not
against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities in high places.”