shawnethomas

Several years ago, a man and his wife were traveling on the Interstate Highway in Florida, when their car broke down. The next exit was 40 miles away, and there had been a rash of highway robberies, so no one was stopping to help them. They actually counted 100 cars that drove past – until they finally stopped counting! At last a man stopped to help – a man who could barely speak English. He helped them out, took no money for it when they offered, and then he drove away. The wife turned to her husband and said, “How do you pay somebody back for that?” After thinking for a while, the husband said, “We can’t; but what we can do is pass along what he did for us.”

Now in some ways, that couple’s story is very unique. But in another way, if you are a Christian, this is YOUR story! God saw you helpless, in your sin, and He did what no one else would do or could do — and sent Jesus to die on the cross to pay for your sins and save you. And what can you possibly do to pay Him back? Nothing! We could never pay Him back for one drop of the blood of Jesus that saved us! But what we CAN do – and what we WILL do, if we are really grateful – is to pass along to others the same kind of mercy that God first gave us.

This morning we continue our study of the character qualities of Christ found in the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:3-12. These are the qualities that God is using everything that happens in your life to build into you. We’ve seen that He wants you to be spiritually dependent on Him (“poor in spirit”); He wants you to mourn your own sins and those of others; He wants you to be “meek” (trusting in Him and doing what is right); and He wants you to spiritually hungry. Today we come to the 5th quality: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Continue reading →