Merciful

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Monday morning, the 20th of May, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in the Book of Psalm 145:8: 

“The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy.”

Isn’t that beautiful to know? Then we go to Psalm 85:2: 

“You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; You have covered all their sin.” 

Praise God that you and I serve a merciful saviour! Peter asked the Lord Jesus, “How many times must I forgive my brother? Seven times?” And remember what Jesus said to Peter? “Seven times seventy.” Wow! I thank God that our Lord is slow to anger and He is quick to forgive. He is a merciful God.

I want to tell you a little story about when I was looking for forgiveness, mercy, and grace from my neighbours. Many years ago, I was burning firebreaks on our farm. We have a huge wetland right on the boundary of our farm. It is the sponge which supplies the water to the Umvoti River, which goes all the way down to the Indian Ocean. I was burning away there. Fortunately, I had contacted everybody and all of a sudden, a gust of wind came up and took the fire straight into the huge swamp. Now, inside that swamp are 12-foot-high reeds; it is like an ocean inside there, and the most massive fire got going, where the clouds were black and literally covering the sun. I felt so terribly embarrassed. I had to get on my radio on my pick-up and radio all my neighbours who were on the boundary of this massive wetland on the other side. This was in the middle of winter, when those those reeds were snow white. Fortunately none of the farms were affected, but that day I needed mercy and grace and you know, my neighbours were so kind, they were more understanding and gracious to me than I could ever have imagined.

Today, remember, Jesus Christ loves you, He is not here to condemn you. He is not here to cast you away. No - He wants you to grow. Sometimes we have to be chastised a little bit, we have to be disciplined through the mistakes we make but He is always quick to pick us up, dust us off and say, “Come on now, you can do this.”

Jesus bless you today as you are also understanding and forgiving to others.

Goodbye.