Mercy & The Principle of Fulfillment – to Love Mercy describes the heart of the gift’s strength of character. Like the other six gifts, it is beneficial to be reminded of the birthright God wove into the Mercy portion:
Mercy’s Birthright*
“To release the holiness of God
into their environment.
To come into the presence of God and worship God in all of life.”
Because the Mercy receives and processes information differently than its six companion redemptive gifts, that recognition is itself a point of healing and acceptance that Holy Spirit desires to foundationally reset. The first six gifts, each unique, nevertheless have a more logic-driven, functional bent to their outworking. That is collectively enough to cause Mercy to feel like a square peg in a round hole. But Mercy released …
If you have ever felt ‘misunderstood’ or like you did not ‘fit’ or ‘belong’, on a specific or broad-scale basis, may I suggest that your Mercy gift has been or remains affected by unresolved wounds and/or need for nurture and development. Where that is the case, the Mercy’s own birthright serves as the bridge between its sense of being in a doing world. To waive what Mercy is birthright-designed to do (come into the holiness, presence, and worship of God) renders loss of being, the strength of Mercy’s godly design.
Mercy is designed to freely move about in their environment, externally and in the community of the human spirit. Yet, like the other six gifts, Mercy has its own weaknesses that it battles. The love and justice Mercy craves can only be fulfilled in relationship with Christ, who lives to ever make intercession for us all. For the Mercy who longs for fulfillment, the Lord’s admonition to us through the prophet Micah 1 is to love mercy.
Pleasing God, not man
When I first set about writing of the Mercy portion, including the Warfare and the Mercy Seat articles, a picture came to mind. It has provided a worthwhile example of the Mercy seated with Christ in heavenly realms, at the Mercy Seat next to the throne of God. The place of His Presence; the holy environment and atmosphere where God’s grace, mercy, love, and justice flow.
Pleasing God, not man is the essential virtue that weights the balance from the negative to the redemptive expression of the heart God placed within the Mercy. The mental picture given me was of a seesaw or teeter-totter, with my eyes drawn to the fulcrum (pivot point, support, hinge) in the middle. I love how Jesus used common examples in his Gospel parables of that day. He still speaks so we can relate.
The Fulcrum Principle
Embracing your design for redemptive living hinges, if you will, on the fulcrum principle of a seesaw. No portion of our God-given design feels it more acutely than the Mercy; it is the tipping point of surrender.
Regardless the struggle playing out on the battlefield of the mind, the fulcrum principle is in effect. Each time another redemptive point to love mercy is scored by and for the Mercy, the Lord’s mercy, which triumphs over judgment, prevails. The substance of His Being that is greater within you 2 makes itself known. He Who is Mercy carries great weight. Similar in the natural to one seated with you on the seesaw, adding their strength.
The fulcrum principle works in the opposite manner as well. The wounded or immature Mercy can quickly fall to the non-redemptive side of their gift’s expression. The sumo-wrestler soul’s mind, will, and emotions strong-arm the spirit that God designed to walk in dominion over sin and unholy circumstances, and more. But, when the Lord is invited to dispense justice over every bitter root laid bare before Him, the spirit is released to grow.
Learning to live and walk in the bearing of one who chooses pleasing God, not man is continually worked out at the mercy seat for oneself. Soon followed by myriad opportunities to love our neighbor as ourselves. Every believer in Christ Jesus is constrained to God’s law of love. To love mercy is to validate His heart of love. To be delinquent in love is to refuse the mercy God extends, through which we become merciful and strong.
Describing the Gift
I encourage you (and me) to practice the reality of being seated with Christ in the presence of God, engaging His adjudication of matters of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.3 It’s part of true worship.
Learning to love mercy develops through yielding to the love of the Lord your God in all these parts of your being. And, to love your neighbor as yourself. “There is no commandment greater than these.”
The Mercy overview continues in Mercy & The Principle of Fulfillment – Describing the Gift. There is yet more to unpack of this seventh portion of the human spirit.
~ Nancy
*A. Burk/C. Wales description of Mercy’s birthright
1 Micah 6:8 2 I John 4:4 3 Mark 12:28-34
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Thank you again, Nancy! I love the reminders to “keep that fulcrum” in my life…balance is incredibly important for me, although that wasn’t the word you used or maybe not even the point, 🙂 But it came to me nonetheless. And “to love mercy…” Ahh…funny how someone with the mercy gift may not embrace it willingly, or love it in the moment. Sometimes it causes them more pain than they think they can bear. Somewhere it also says for the one who gives mercy, to give it “cheerfully.” That’s a choice. It doesn’t always come naturally to be full of joy in giving it out. But, definitely it letting it overflow. 🙂
Love!
And you are welcome again, Pamela! Romans 12:6-8 – the text for the seven redemptive gifts – concludes with your cheerful mercy! Stay tuned for ‘describing the gift’. Pain, embracing, Mercy learning to love mercy … the Lord never said being transformed by the renewing of our mind (and circumcision of our heart) would be easy or without pain, but glory to yet be revealed. And it begins this side of the Veil until His glorious Day. Encourage your Mercy portion and your heart in the Lord. David had the right idea 🙂