BE MERCIFUL TO RECEIVE MERCY!!!!!!

Compassion leads you to have mercy, which is like forgiveness. ... This is a quality that has to do with compassion, forgiveness, and leniency. If convicted of a crime, you might plead for the judge's mercy, meaning a lesser punishment. When people say "May God have mercy on me!" they're asking for forgiveness. Forgiving someone or relieving a person's pain are both merciful acts. The word merciful also has religious connotations which come from the root word mercy, used since the 12th century to mean "God's forgiveness of his creatures' offenses." The origin is the Old French merci, "pity or thanks."

I want to challenge you to commit an act of premeditated mercy in each of these categories this week.Wait. Isn’t there a tension between mercy and personal responsibility? Yes, there is. But I have personally decided that if I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of being too gracious, too merciful, and too forgiving.

So, how will you be merciful?

Be patient with people’s quirks. Who is that person in your life who has irritating quirks? How can you practice patience with that person this week?

Help anyone around you who is hurting. Who around you is obviously hurting that you can help this week? If you can’t think of anybody, then you’re not paying attention. Look closer!

Give people a second chance. Who do you need to give a second chance to? How can you show that person mercy and compassion this week?

Do good to those who hurt you. Maybe you’re suffering from an old wound that you have not been able to let go of. You need to forgive and then turn it around for good. Who is that person in your life? Will you make a phone call or a visit this week?

Be kind to those who offend you. Who offends you? Maybe it’s a politician or a comedian that you can pray for. Maybe it’s a Facebook friend who has different views and says some pretty offensive things. How can you be intentional about showing kindness to that person this week?

Build bridges of love to the unpopular. Who is the first person who comes to mind when you think of an outcast? Who spends their lunch breaks eating alone or doesn’t seem to have any friends at soccer games? What specific thing will you do this week to bridge the gap between you and that person with love?

Value relationships over rules. Who is an unbeliever you could invite over for dinner in the next few weeks? Will you then step up and invite that person to church? This is your ministry of mercy.

Origin of the name Mercy: Taken from mercy (compassion, forgiveness, pity), which is derived from the Latin merces (payment, reward). The name was popular among the Puritans in the 16th and 17th centuries but is now less common.

Four Signs That You Are Merciful

God’s mercy, is “all love in love.” Mercy goes much further and deeper than taking pity on someone in need or reconciling with someone who has asked forgiveness. Mercy is a way of looking at life, a way of approaching our everyday experiences and relationships. There are many signs of a merciful spirit; let’s tackle a mere four of them today.

1. You expect good (behavior, attitude, intention) from others rather than habitually looking for the worst. This means that you don’t go into encounters looking for ways to judge or criticize, and you don’t enter conversations expecting a fight. You don’t put the worst possible interpretations on others’ ambiguous comments. And although you’ve experienced being used or cheated by others, you enter every relationship with hope and trust, relying on wisdom to help you protect and honor all persons.
2. When you’re in a position to exercise power over others, you don’t, unless by doing so you are better able to protect or otherwise help them. For instance: If you have a naturally forceful personality, you don’t take advantage of it to get your way. If you have the means to “work the system” to get what you want, you evaluate if what you want is beneficial to the common good. You are especially sensitive to those who do not have your advantage, position, and leverage, and you look for opportunities to empower them and help them grow into their own strengths and gifts.
3. You hold back from making comments or divulging information that will cause others to feel embarrassment, shame, or other discomfort. This is especially tempting in a group setting, because often the person who has been shamed or insulted knows that she would only make matters worse by responding or trying to present her side of the story.
4. When you must confront another person for the right reason (correcting an error, warning of danger, clarifying a statement or event), you don’t enjoy it. That is, this confrontation does not turn into “getting this off my chest” or “setting her straight.” A merciful person feels the pain of the one she must confront, and she says what must be said as gently as possible.

Learning to be Merciful in Our Relationships

Dietrich Bonhoeffer counseled a couple on their wedding day, "Forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts." The daily practice of being merciful in your relationships keeps weeds from springing up and choking out the flowers in the garden of our relationships. The Urania Book teaches that mercy is a process, a profound spiritual exercise, the completion of justice, and a joyful experience of partnership with God. In my experience, the passage of greatest social value in the book is the description at [28:6.2] of that mercy process. The more one practices the five steps, the more meaningful they become, and the more their power is evident.

1. The first step in the mercy process is to be just.

This means at least two things for me:

Remove logs. Is there a log in my eye, some pride or anger that is distorting my moral perception?

Clarify the violation. Exactly what moral principle or ethical law has been violated? Often I find that I cannot answer this question with anything definite. I am merely irritated by someone Else's behavior, and the mercy process is not truly indicated; it is I who need to grow in understanding and love.

In some cases, I need as part of the Justice step to initiate the "Jesus grievance procedure" by going personally to the individual and lovingly confronting him or her.

In some cases, I need to go as far as involving groups with judicial authority. But I must at least be free of mental poisons, and I must be very clear about what violation I believe occurred. Being just is-- as I interpret this paragraph at [28:6.2]--the personal virtue governing the experience of "group understanding."

The hardest times are when an individual persistently refuses to acknowledge wrongdoing or to amend his ways. When this occurs, it blocks the ideal completion of the mercy process. Social authority may act, but unresolved issues await a higher stage of universe progress.

In a family, people learn to agree to disagree. If one member insists on the others' meeting his or her own standards, freedom perishes or the family breaks asunder. When is an issue worth insisting on that much? Some issues are worth it. Not many.

2. Next, we must be fair.

Fairness means taking into account the antecedents that caused the unfortunate behavior in question. If there was a lapse in the effectiveness of spiritual motives, then it must be possible to understand the material motives whose history helps explain things.

Comprehend the motive. This is the prime requisite in understanding people. It is easy to forget to even wonder why a person did something; and it is easier to postulate motives than discover them. One of the most powerful prayers is, "Please, God, help me love this person."

Praying for someone is more than scanning the individual's name on a prayer list. It means savoring the relationship, waiting for illumination, and preparing to interact. It means sensing what God is doing in that person's life and adding our own finite support for that enterprise. Some readers have stumbled over the recommendation in the Urantia Book about letting others know you are praying for them. It would be injurious to say, "I'm praying that God will help you overcome your obnoxious parenting style." It probably would not even do to say, "Raising children is a tremendous undertaking, and I pray for divine wisdom and grace for you"; but one could surely manage to express something like, "I have really been enjoying praying for you lately."

This part of the process requires us not only to see the good motives that may have been present in unfortunate behavior; but we also need compassionate regard for the less noble motives that are part of the common heritage of humankind. Fear, vanity, sex hunger, thirst for wealth and power, ease-seeking, problem-avoidance, insincerity--each of us has a portion of these. They have an evolutionary role to play, and overcoming them does not have to be a lonely struggle.

The discovery of motives is not a one way street; mercy is not something that one person does to another unilaterally regardless of the other's knowledge, desire, and cooperation. People who comprehend each others' motives achieve "mutual appreciation".

3. Next comes patience.

Some faults will take more than a lifetime of work to eradicate. What rate of growth can be reasonably expected?

The word patience comes from the Latin word meaning to suffer. Patience begins in suffering, but it ends in service. Someone said that faith means knowing that the rules of the game are fair and that there are unexpected good surprises ahead.

Patience is an adjunct to "fraternal fellowship"

4. Then kindness.

We have to interact with people to show kindness. It is so easy to feel forgiving in the middle of a marvelous prayer session with the Father, but quite another matter to actually relate to a difficult mortal. Once I took a seminary course in evangelism. At the beginning of the term, we each selected a person to whom we wanted to present the gospel. One week, our assignment was very simple: love that person. All I will say is that it was a wonderful assignment.

5. Finally, we can be merciful in our relationships.

By the time we experience the flow of kindness, the normal inclination is to just forget about the original problem. It's so much easier to let bygones be bygones. But mercy summarizes the whole process, remembers all the steps, and in the light of that whole sequence, to extend mercy. That is not the mercy of blindness, but the mercy of the realization of reality--the evolving dominance of goodness. An action that expresses trust, such as giving the person some responsibility, can manifest the conclusion of the mercy process.

Whenever I have done my best, taking as much time as needed, with each step in sequence, I have found rich rewards.

Let me try to describe an experience of mercy which captures an essential aspect of this process--that it has phases bound together in the unity of a mature act of faith. It does not only involve spiritual awareness, in that it does not focus alone on realities that are divine, eternal, and spiritual. Rather it brings the mortal, temporal, and un spiritual into relationship with the enduring values; it is an act of what I call our philosophic consciousness.

Suppose I am thinking of a person who has wronged me. (For the purpose of this example, I am making the unworldly assumption that there is no question about determining the moral character of the action in question.) As an unspiritual being, my first awareness of this act may be the (psychologic) pain of injury. I may feel anger or sadness, contempt or outrage, intensely or mildly. In prayer, God helps me to regain my perspective on my brother, to see his shining wonderfulness. I dwell in the beauty of that revelation, and my love for him returns in greater strength and radiance than before. I have reached the stage of spirituality.

But now I go one step further. I recall that ugly shadow of the evil that was done to me. It is jarring to juxtapose that shadow beside the beautiful, indwelt creation that has just been revealed to me more brightly. I think a bit more: there is a reason why that evil act occurred.

Some compulsion of material causes, some immaturity of creature will has manifested. This action is a part of the evolutionary growth of this brother, part of an early chapter of his success story. His error exposes part of the subterranean geography that needs adjustment, settling, harmonization. I can apply my prayer for my brother at that exposed spot. I can have confidence in the eventual triumph of my brother-- and the Supreme--with regard to this weakness.

By this time, my image of my brother has changed. About the nucleus of the indwelt and divinely bestowed personality, I see the slowly evolving self. I identify with the evolutionary process of progress. I think how glad I will be one day, when we are all so much more lovable, to have begun to know and love this brother in the mortal life. I give thanks for that privilege.

The Importance of Teaching Mercy to Children

Teaching children to be kind, compassionate, forgiving, and merciful is important, especially in a world where bullying is such a huge problem. According to BullyingStatistics.org, approximately one out of seven students in school has been a victim of a bully or a bully. While there are currently many campaigns and programs to end bullying, bullying statistics continue to show that this is a serious problem. One of the best ways to stop the bullying problem is for parents to start teaching children important values and characteristics at home. Teaching children important values, such as showing mercy to others, can help stop bullying before it begins. Here’s a closer look at the definition of mercy, the importance of leading your children by example, and some helpful ideas you can use to teach your children how to be merciful to others.

Learning from the Mercy Definition

What is mercy? Before you can teach your child about this important characteristic, you have to define merciful. According to the Oxford Dictionaries, the definition of mercy is “Compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.”

Mercy is all about a combination of compassion and forgiveness, even when it’s possible to harm someone else. In fact, being merciful involves being compassionate and forgiving when someone else does not deserve it.

It is easy to be angry with someone and to treat that individual badly, which is why bullying often occurs. Sometimes bullies bully other children because they are angry at something else in their life and they take it out on someone else. In other cases, bullies may become angry at something another child does to them, so they lash back instead of showing mercy and compassion.

Conflicts are bound to happen to children, no matter their age. As children grow older, conflicts are more likely to linger. It is important for children to learn to show mercy when conflicts occur instead of holding onto anger and bitterness.

Leading Your Children By Example

How do you begin teaching mercy to your children? One of the best ways you can teach your kids to be merciful, forgiving, and compassionate is to start leading by example. When children are young, they learn a lot from observation. If you want them to learn about mercy, then you have to show children how to be merciful in your own life.

Are you treating others with mercy? Do you treat your children with compassion? Are you forgiving when your children do something wrong?

It’s important to ask yourself these questions because your children will learn so much from your actions. Think about how you treat others, especially your children. For example, if your child drops a glass full of juice on the floor, do you get angry and yell at your child or do you show mercy and forgiveness? If someone at work does something unkind to you, do your children see you lash out at that person?

You will find that you can teach small lessons in mercy in everyday life. When your child forgets his chores and is genuinely sorry, your reaction will teach a lesson. If your spouse does something that upsets you, you have a chance to show compassion instead of anger. Start paying attention to the small things in life, taking every chance possible to show your children how to show mercy to others.

Helpful Ideas for Teaching Kids to Be Merciful

Being merciful involves a combination of compassion and forgiveness. While it’s essential to make sure you lead your children by example, you can also use other measures to help your child learn more about this important characteristic. Here are some helpful ideas you can use to teach your children to be merciful to others.

• Start the Conversation with Kids – Start the conversation with your children about mercy. You can start by talking to them about their school life. Do your children notice children who eat alone at lunch? Encourage them to show compassion and take the time to show kindness to those kids. If your child notices that another child is being unkind or unforgiving to someone else, talk about it with your child and how things could be done differently.
• Use Media to Show Opportunities for Compassion and Mercy – Family Minute recommends turning the tables on the negative media to show children opportunities for being compassionate and merciful. The internet and the television often show children bad examples, and unfortunately, it is difficult for parents to filter out these bad messages. However, you can use media to show your children where they could do things differently. When you something on television or the web that shows a lack of forgiveness, compassion, or mercy, you should take the time to talk to your children about the situation. Point out what could have happened if someone would have used compassion, forgiveness, and kindness.
• Consider Getting a Pet for the Family – Another great idea is to consider getting a pet for your family, since animals can teach kids so many great qualities. Having a pet can teach kids compassion, forgiveness, mercy, responsibility, and so much more. The way your child treats a pet will be a huge indication of his character, and if you see characteristics that are unwanted, you can work with your child to change them. Let your child have some daily responsibilities when caring for the pet, teaching them how to care for the wellbeing of someone else instead of just focusing on their own needs.
• Teach Kids to Look Beyond Actions to the Person – When it comes to the treatment of other people, you need to teach your kids to look beyond actions to the person, especially when it comes to being merciful or forgiving. If another child calls your kid a name during recess, encourage your child to think about what that child may have been experiencing. Maybe that child was upset he was being left out. Perhaps the child was upset because of problems in his family. When children learn to look at the person instead of just the action, they are more likely to respond with compassion and forgiveness instead of being mean and hateful back.
• Encourage Children to Talk About Problems – According to Parenting.com, it’s important to teach children to talk about problems, which can help children learn to talk things out and extend forgiveness and mercy. When someone else hurts a child, the child needs to know that it is okay to feel angry about the problem. However, instead of lashing out with anger, suggest that your child talks to the offender in a kind, calm way about the problem. Children can explain that the action made them feel bad and that they do not want the offender to repeat the action. This teaches your child to be merciful instead of being angry and hateful to the offender.

Mercy is often a hard concept for children to understand, but it’s important for children learn how to be merciful to others. When parents lead by example, they can help their children learn how to show this characteristic to others. By using these tips, it’s possible to teach your child more about being merciful, compassionate, and forgiving, preventing your child from turning into a bully in the future.

People with this gift of Mercy show:

?Empathy

?Attentiveness

?Caring

?Compassion

?Comfort

?Deference

?Fairness

?Meekness

?Gentleness

?Sensitivity

?Responsiveness

?Tolerance

?Kindness

Characteristics:

1. Express love, grace and dignity to those facing hardships or crisis.

2. Have a sensitivity to what the need is - the surface and the root needs.

3. Desire to remove the hurts of others.

4. Serve in difficult or unsightly circumstances, and do so cheerfully in spite of the undeserving nature of the needy without grudging or complaint.

5. Serve others with extraordinary patience.

6. Concern themselves with individual or social issues in which people are treated unjustly.

7. The least noticed, but most appreciated gift (along with the ministry of helps).

8. The ability to feel genuine pity and compassion for people in trouble.

9. Have the God-given ability to sense the pain of individuals and groups, often by just walking into a room.

10. Emphasize mental and emotional relationships in helping those in need.

11. Measure acceptance by physical closeness and quality time together.

12. Those with the gift of mercy can discern, feel, and, on occasion, actually suffer the distress of other people - especially affliction or adversity which is undeserved. The y identify with and adapt their own feelings to the feelings of others. They may actually take on themselves the hurts and heartaches of others. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

13. The gift of service seeks to meet the needs of others by giving practical help, but the gift of mercy meets the emotional needs of those in difficulty.

14. Tolerant of personal differences.

15. Very sensitive to words and actions that may hurt others.

16. Desire to have Christians stop hating and hurting one another.

17. Enjoy being with others who are mercy motivated.

18. Attract people with motivational gifting of prophecy.

19. Are loyal in friendships and expect the same from others.

20. Easily detect insincerity or wrong motives.

21. Mercy people are attractive to those who were hurting.

Mercy is like a diamond; it is multi-faceted. Here are seven facets of mercy. I guarantee if you'll learn how to be an agent of mercy, it will transform your relationships.

1. Mercy means being patient with people's quirks. How do you get more patience for your kids, spouse, or friends? The Bible says in James 3:17, "The wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy" (NLT, second edition). The wiser you become, the more patient and merciful you become.

2. Mercy means helping anyone around you who is hurting. You cannot love your neighbor as yourself without being merciful. Proverbs 3:27 says, "Whenever you possibly can, do good to those who need it" (TEV). But God is not simply watching what you do. He's watching your attitude: "[When you] show mercy, do it cheerfully" (Romans 12:8, NIV).

3. Mercy means giving people a second chance. When somebody hurts us, we normally want to get even or write that person off. But the Bible says, "Stop being bitter and angry and mad at others. Don't yell at one another or curse each other or ever be rude. Instead, be kind and merciful, and forgive others, just as God forgave you because of Christ" (Ephesians 4:31-32, CEV).

4. Mercy means doing good to those who hurt you. Mercy is giving people what they need, not what they deserve. Why should we do it? Because that's what God does with you: "Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because [God] is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:35-36, NIV).

5. Mercy means being kind to those who offend you. You've got to be more interested in winning people to Christ than in winning the argument. Jude 1:22-23 says, "Show mercy to those who have doubts. Save others by snatching them from the fire of hell. Show mercy to others, even though you are afraid that you might be stained by their sinful lives" (GW).

6. Mercy means building bridges of love to the unpopular. This is what I call premeditated mercy, because you intentionally build friendships with people who don't have friends or who are not accepted at work or in society. When the Pharisees questioned why Jesus ate with tax collectors and other unpopular people, Jesus said, "'I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.' For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners" (Matthew 9:13b, NLT, second edition).

7. Mercy means valuing relationships over rules. Romans 13:10 says, "Love fulfills the requirements of God's law." If you want to show mercy, put people before policies. Put their needs before procedures. Put relationships before regulations. Choose love over law.