What Mercy Did for Me

"I was watching a video last night and the preacher held up a $100 bill.  He said when it was made it was a crisp $100 bill with no wrinkles.  That $100 bill was then used in a drug deal.  And then used in prostitution.  It had been in the mud, it was worn, it had torn corners.  How much is that $100 bill worth now?  It is still worth the same as the day it was made.  That's how God sees us.  No matter our past, no matter what we have gone through, and no matter how damaged we are.  We are just as much as worthy to him today as the day he created us."

I thought of that recently as we sang, “What Mercy Did For Me”.  “Lord, You found me, You healed me.  You called me from the grave.  You gave me Your real love.  I thank You Jesus.  You washed my sins away.  And now I'm living and I got forgiven. You came to set me free And that's what Your mercy did for me.”  I remember in high school, a medical doctor told our church, strictly from a medical point of view, what all was done to Jesus and how He suffered.

On Christmas Eve, 1994, I was in a church service where the minister asked, had Jesus not suffered enough when He died on the cross?  Then he asked, “should He have done more for you?  Should He have suffered more for you?”  I had been holding on to guilt and shame for years.  The minister explained that if we think we are too bad to accept forgiveness then we are not thinking about what Jesus really did for us.  I had asked for forgiveness but never accepted it.  That Christmas Eve I received a very special gift that no one else could give me.  A gift that money could not buy. I accepted Jesus’ forgiveness; the guilt and shame no longer held me captive.

Pastor Tim literally tied “guilt”, “shame”, “rejection” and “brokenness” signs to himself and reminded us that we do not have to carry those things.  Ask God to forgive you and the next time those guilty feelings come up, say out loud, "God forgave me."  Remind yourself of Psalm 103: 12, "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."  Declaring Scripture, out loud, helps us renew our mind.  The nails may have held Jesus to the cross but it was His love for you and me that kept Him there.  

“For when He was on the cross, I was on His mind.”