His Great Mercy

December 21

“I, by Your great mercy, will come into Your house; in reverence will I bow down toward Your holy temple” Psalm 5:7. The great men of the Old Testament, like David who is quoted here, approached a God they knew was, “…high and lifted up and whose train filled His temple,” Isaiah 6:1, but they were not privileged to know Him face-to-face.

Until Jesus came, man could not fully grasp the love and compassion of God. They knew Him to be mighty in power. They understood that His hand of mercy could be moved by their prayers, but they could not begin to fathom the intimacy He desired to have with them until Jesus came to walk the dusty streets of Galilee with them.

What the humble country folk saw when they met Jesus was different from the concept they had of the lofty One who inhabits eternity. They saw His power—to heal the sick, to deliver the demon possessed, to still the waves, to feed the thousands, to raise the dead—and they knew He was no mere mortal; they knew eternity was at His beck and call.

But they also saw the compassion in His eyes and felt the love in His heart. They knew He was not so far removed from them as to be untouched by the problems and challenges they faced. They saw in Jesus the matchless heart of love that can emanate only from the God who comes as our Savior. They understood that His great mercy was perfectly revealed in the One who was born to die so man might live.