What’s New?
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
Having responded to our question, “What’s New?” with such wide, sweeping replies as a new covenant, a new commandment and a new creation, as well as a new birth and a new heart for Christians, this week the response to our theme question is very personal. It is deeply rooted in the Old Testament book of Lamentations in an observation drawn from human experience with God, which testifies, “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning” (3:22–23).
On this very personal level of daily experience, new covenant believers can attest to the truth that God’s mercies are renewed daily. A day never dawns in which divine mercy is not available for whatever life may be holding for us at the time.
Divine mercy may be thought of as God’s love withholding from His children what we rightly deserve for our sinful thoughts, attitudes and actions. The Apostle Paul, in reflecting on his pre-conversion manner of life that included persecution of Christians, was moved to the thanksgiving he expressed in 1 Timothy 1:12–13: “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” He obviously felt that divine mercy had withheld from him what he rightly deserved for this earlier behavior.
Although we often interchange references to God’s mercy with references to His grace, we might find it helpful to distinguish between mercy and grace. We can do this by thinking of grace as God’s love bestowing on us what we do not deserve. Hence, God’s perfect love often manifests itself by withholding the bad we rightly deserve, as well as bestowing generously the good we have no claims to deserve.
Returning our thoughts to the beginning of this session, we are reminded that God’s mercies are not only offered in divine plurality but also are made new every day. A good recollection upon awakening each day is the truth that it is because of God’s compassion and love that His mercies are renewed day by day even in the face of our imperfections and failures that cannot earn and do not deserve such a manifestation of His love.
In light of God’s mercies new each day, we can do no less than what the psalmist admonished: “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (Ps. 118:1).
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