Matins Devotion: October 11, 2023
Our God is a God of mercy. He is the God who chose from before the foundation of the world to pour out His mercy upon His children. He’s the God who always intended to dwell with His people, to hold them in His arms, and cover them in the salvation they didn’t deserve.
But sadly and strangely, His people didn’t want it. This is a major theme in the Gospels. The Old Testament was all about Christ. Every page of it was part of God’s promise to send His Son into this world to bring salvation to His people. And yet, when the Son of God arrived, His own people didn’t recognize Him. In fact, the more familiar they were with the Scriptures, the more expertise they supposedly had in understanding God’s word, the more hostile they were to Him. So despite Jesus performing a bevy of miracles that should have kindled their faith, unbelief followed Him everywhere He went–in His hometown, in Jerusalem, in cities like Chorazin and Bethsaida. God desired mercy, not sacrifice. His people wanted very much the opposite. And so the wrath of God would fall upon them.
But God remained a God of mercy. And He was not going to cease producing it because those who were to be the first recipients of His mercy refused to consume it. And so, according to His plan from before the foundation of the world, God began to bring the gentiles into His arms. Through the death and resurrection of God the Son, through the apostolic word inspired by God the Spirit, God the Father gathered you into His embrace and poured upon you the mercy that had been waiting for you since before a single atom of matter existed.
So come to Christ, you who labor and are heavy laden. Come rest in the holy wounds that unleashed the flood of divine mercy upon you. Come rest in the dying words of Jesus Christ that forgave your every sin, that erased your every iniquity, and that have conquered your every sorrow. In the once closed but now eternally open eyes of Jesus Christ, see the truth: your God has always been the God of mercy. And He always will be.