24. Learning to Be Mercy
Audio Only24. Learning to Be Mercy - for Notes
24. Learning to Be Mercy - PP.pdf
The theology of the last lesson is beyond remarkable, all the finest details of Christ. As I completed it, I realized that setting out that theology, that is, the study of all the details that are our Father, would take many similar lessons.
Part of that study would be knowing the Pro-Knowing and the Ekenosis of God made personal in and through us.
But God said that His Love is already poured out and shed abroad in our hearts. The point is that we will know the finest details of Christ only as we first believe that God is telling us the truth, that we do share Hheart with God.
To Be Mercy. In this lesson, however, we want to explore two closely related things. The first is how we are already just like the Lord Jesus Christ as the Mercy of God, and the second is our practice of being that Mercy towards others.
You have heard of “practicing the Mercy Seat.” I want to shorten that to the “Be-Mercy” prayer.
Note that “to show” mercy is the human definition, but “to be” Mercy is the God definition. To Be Mercy is the greatest strength ever displayed inside the universe.
Inside of Jesus. To be mercy, then, we must be inside of Mercy in the place where it happened, that is, inside of Jesus upon the cross.
Paul’s gospel means that we never “look at” the walk of the Atonement, and especially “at” the cross. Our place is inside of Jesus, and we look out through His eyes. – The next lesson is “Through Eyes of Fire.”
We can know what it means to be inside of Jesus’ soul upon the cross looking out through His eyes because God put David right there, and in Psalm 22, David gives us Jesus’ own thoughts. Yet we combine these thoughts with the gospel accounts.
Inside of Confusion. Let’s go back and forth between the two accounts and the confused turmoil inside of Jesus.
- God, why have You forsaken Me? – God, You have answered Me.
- I am a worm and no man. – The Father and I are one.
- All who see Me ridicule me… Dogs have surrounded me. – Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
We are inside of a Man wrenched with confused agony, feeling that God must be far away and frightened of the hatred being expressed against Him without cause. We are inside of and looking out from utter failure.
Just Like Jesus. And there I will meet with you (Exodus 25). The heart of Jesus upon the cross IS God’s true Mercy Seat, and it is there, inside of Jesus, that God meets together with us, there above the Blood.
It was Jesus who stumbled under a cross He could not carry; it was Father who carried His incapable Son all the way through death and into life. Of Myself, I can do nothing (John 5). – You made me trust while on my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon You from birth (Psalm 22).
We are the same; we are just like Jesus.
What Does It Mean To Be Like The Lord Jesus Christ? Most of the answers given to this question are un-Biblical. Most of the answers see an outward form, mis-defined.
1. It means to be human in all that a human is.
2. It means to be capable of nothing of one’s self.
3. It means to know the Father filling us full.
4. It means to trust utterly that God directs our every step.
5. It means to fail utterly.
6. It means to allow Father and others to share our agony.
7. It means to place others together with Father inside of us.
Feeling and Doing. The first part of being Mercy, that is, the place where God and others can join together, is to allow God to be part of our confused agony, part of our debilitating failure.
Upon the cross, Jesus felt like driving God far away from His confused agony; He felt as if He were a worm, and not a man at all. Do you feel like that sometimes? If you do, then you are just like Jesus, inside of His Being Mercy revealed.
The question, then, is not what Jesus felt, but what Jesus did. Jesus drew the Father into His own confused agony, making Father part of Himself, regardless – You have answered Me.
Allowing Father. And just as Jesus allowed the Father to share in His misery, so we also do the same, for we are just like Jesus. And though we feel like a worm in our shame, yet we say, “Father, you are one with me,” just like Jesus.
But then we turn and look upon this one who has done us such wrong, this one who has offended us – or even is offending us right now. We feel the pain they are thoughtlessly hurling our way, yet when we speak, we say, just like Jesus, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”
And we allow this person also to enter into our hearts.
The Father Carries. In that moment, as we allow Father to be part of our misery, and as we allow this offensive person to enter into our hearts, there, in that place, just above the Blood, Father and they meet together.
And it is Father Himself, then, who carries each one all the way through death and into life, in spite of and including our own stumbling failure, just like the Lord Jesus Christ.
By this we have known LOVE, in that He set forth His soul for us, AND WE ALSO are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16). Greater love has no man than this, than to set forth his soul for his brother or sister (John 15:13).
Set Forth Soul. Tithemi psuche – Set forth soul.
To place your own soul out there for Father’s sake, that Father might be part of you and that others might be part of you, and that Father and they might join together inside the agony of your own heart. – SHARING HEART WITH GOD!
To share Hheart with God will cost you everything. To share Hheart with God will win you everything. If indeed we share together with His suffering that we might also share together with His glory (Romans 8:17). Just like the Lord Jesus Christ in all ways except honor, yet He honors us fully with Himself.
This Season of Learning. Do not be troubled in your heart; you believe into God, believe also into Me (John 14:1).
This season of learning to share Hheart with God is the most important time of your life, now and forever. Nothing you will ever learn, nothing you will ever do, is greater than this.
Do not be concerned about your slowness and your searing inability, for that is how God made you. Learn to allow Father to be part of you; learn to allow others to be part of you. Rest utterly as a baby upon its mother’s breasts, as Jesus did.
Practice the Mercy Seat. The prayer of Being Mercy can be spoken in many different ways, according to your own person and circumstances.
- Being Mercy does not excuse sin; it covers sin by the Blood.
- Being Mercy is not wishful thinking; it sees Christ as the end of all.
- Being Mercy is not walking blindly; it is the faith of the Son of God energeoing through Love.
- Being Mercy is not a drag; it carries all, together with Father, all the way through death and into LIFE.
I would urge you to read again the “Practice the Mercy Seat” assignment in the light of this lesson.
Upon Firm We Stand. I will not include that “Practice the Mercy Seat” assignment in this lesson; you have access to the PDF. Adapt the “Be Mercy” prayer to your own ways and circumstances. Do not treat it as a “dance through the meadows” or as “throwing flowers willy-nilly.”
Our commitment to set forth our souls for our brothers and sisters in Christ is not a light or a little thing. Nonetheless, the rule of the gospel places us upon an absolute foundation – upon firm we stand.
To be the authority of God in the universe, that is, to Love, we must also know that absolute confidence of Christ.
Absolute Confidence. We are part of Christ as we are confident that we are part of Christ – upon firm we stand (Hebrews 3:6 & 14).
To draw Father into yourself as you find yourself to be, to make Father part of your own soul inside all your own ups and downs, ins and outs, is a life of absolute confidence, the faith of the Son of God.
But to then turn and draw other individuals into your heart, into the Love of God shed abroad there, is not first for their sakes, but for Father’s sake. It is God who desires with all His Heart and Being to enter through your heart, that He might be the life and joy of all.
Walk in Wisdom. Now, the truest moment of sharing Hheart with God is inside the turmoil of human experience when other people do or say things that hurt you deeply.
When you do NOT want to love, that is the moment when Father Love through you is most important. You are not “drumming up” a feeling of “love”; you are believing in Father for His sake alone.
More than that, be careful regarding how you draw another person into your heart. You are not drawing that person into “you,” per se, but rather, into that Love of God already shed abroad inside of you.
Father First. We do not walk in fear, for God keeps us, but we do walk in wisdom towards others.
More than that, always place Father first before the other person, that is, allow God Himself to be part of your agony BEFORE you bring the individual into Mercy. Mercy is God, and you are where God meets with that person by your permission.
You see, it’s God who wants to enter into that person’s life. He cannot do so, however, except He enter through your heart, for your heart is the Entrance of God. – Your heart is the Entrance of God.
For the Sake of Others. Then consider these lines of our forever ministry.
The Spirit also joins as help together with our weakness; for we are not aware of the things that are necessary for us to pray, but the Spirit personally brings us in line with Father for the sake of others, with inexpressible groanings. Even more than that, the One who is actively searching hearts, that is, to know present needs, is aware of the thinking of the Spirit, because, according to all the details that are God, He joins us together with God – as on the Mercy Seat – for the sake of the holy ones (Romans 8:26-27).
Your entire life is the travail of the Spirit for others.
Practice Being Mercy. And so I charge you, practice being the Mercy Seat of God; practice being just like the Lord Jesus.
God has always been shaping your heart to fit His, but as you practice being Mercy, that shaping goes into hyperdrive, one might say. And in the midst of all difficulty and all joy, bring your Father into being part of your life for the sake of others.
“Father, this awful thing, this joyous thing, is You, sharing Yourself with me. Oour Holy Spirit is always lining me up with You for the sake of others. And this travail I feel is not for me, but for them, that they might know You, that You might enter into their lives through my wide-open heart.”