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Psalm 25:6 Sirach 51:8 Psalms 103: 4 Luke 18:35-40
“Remember your compassion and your mercy, O LORD, for they are ages old.” Psalms 25:6
“Then I remembered the mercies of the LORD, his acts of kindness through ages past; For he saves those who take refuge in him, and rescues them from every evil.” - Sirach 51:8
You know we are very fortunate to have the Bible at our disposal to use. We have it at our fingertips to constantly refer to and look to what the Lord has done in the past. I always like to think about Luke 18: 35-40, the story of the healing of the blind beggar. As Jesus was going through town, a blind man was sitting there begging. As Jesus passes by him, he shouts at Him asking for pity. Every one else turned their backs on the blind man, told him to stop, and kept walking, fully expecting Jesus to keep walking too. But Jesus didn’t.
So let’s be honest, Jesus totally could have just kept walking with the crowd and ignored the blind man. But, instead, the blind man fully trusted and had faith that the Lord would have mercy on him, would stop, and would hopefully restore his sight. Because of his full faith, the Lord gave him sight, allowing the blind man to follow the Lord the rest of his life.
You see it is moments like this, that we have to take stories from the past, and realize how tender the Lord truly was. He stopped on the side of the road to help a man who couldn’t see. "Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with mercy and compassion" Psalm 103:4
You know, many times we are like this blind man, sitting on the side of the road. Sometimes, we are sitting there on the side of the road, watching everyone pass, watching everyone follow the Lord and bask in His mercy. Yet, we feel as if we are in a pit. If you look in your Bible and follow all of the corresponding verses, it continuously talks about a pit. This pit is talking about the shadowy underworld residence for the dead and is often a metaphor for being near death. When we sit on the sidelines and watch the Lord pass by, we are stuck in a pit. But when we reach out from the pit, or when we call out like the beggar did, the Lord crowns us with Mercy and compassion, He holds His hand out and restores our sight because we had faith. We finally had the initiative to come to Him. He redeems our lives when we are far from wanting Him or believing in Him. And because of this, He tenderly, lovingly, so genuinely cares for us, that even the slightest hint of us desiring Him, He takes it, wraps us up in His mercy and never lets us go.
