The ultimate fulfillment of God's mercy in Jesus is not something that is supplied in time to correct a default in the system, but is something that is planned from all of eternity.
What God does in time, He planned from eternity. And all that He planned in eternity He carries out in time.
Because God is a God of mercy and His mercy endures forever, you can trust that he will have mercy on you (See: 1 Chronicles 17:13). Therefore you can show mercy to your spouse by forgiving whenever he (she) does or says something that hurts or disturbs you.
When Jesus died on the cross the mercy of God did not become any greater. It could not become any greater, for it was already infinite. We get the odd notion that God is showing mercy because Jesus died. No--Jesus died because God is showing mercy. It was the mercy of God that gave us Calvary, not Calvary that gave us mercy. If God had not been merciful there would have been no incarnation, no babe in the manger, no man on a cross and no open tomb.
There's something structurally integrated with foreign coverage. Reporters often default to thinking of their government as the sort of ultimate authority.
It's not correct to say Jesus is God. Now, don't run and report me to the bishop, all right? It's not correct to say that - Jesus is the union of the human and the divine. That's different.
Mercy is like the rainbow, which God hath set in the clouds; it never shines after it is night. If we refuse mercy here, we shall have justice in eternity.
Power is God's hand or arm, omniscience is God's eye, mercy is God's delight, eternity is God's duration, but holiness is God's beauty!
One can take eternity and time to be predicates of God since, being the Ancient of Days, He is the cause of all time and eternity. Yet He is before time and beyond time and is the source of the variety of time and of the seasons. Or again, He precedes the eternal ages, for He is there before eternity and above eternity, and 'His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom' (Ps. 145:13). Amen.
As participants in a mobile culture, our default is to move. God embraces our broken world, and I have no doubt that God can use our movement for good. But I am convinced that we lose something essential to our existence as creatures if we do not recognize our fundamental need for stability. Trees can be transplanted, often with magnificent results. But their default is to stay.
You present a challenge to Satan's plan. You carry something of God within you, something noble and holy, something the world needs - wisdom, kindness, mercy, skill. If Satan can neutralize you, he can mute your influence.
You have to say, whatever it is that I say or do or think or teach must be something that will be consistent with who Jesus Christ was. So that is your ultimate litmus test, not that you've got specific words to say, whatever they may be saying. It is what is being said. They're consistent with the revelation of God that we encounter in Jesus.
[T]he main problem in life is sin, and the only solution is God and his grace. The alternative to this view is to identify something besides sin as the main problem with the world and something besides God as the main remedy. That demonizes something that is not completely bad, and makes an idol out of something that cannot be the ultimate good.
Grace means that God does something for me; law means that I do something for God. God has certain holy and righteous demands which he places upon me: that is law. Now if law means that God requires something of me for their fulfillment, then deliverance from law means he no longer requires that from me, but himself provides it.
The Good News is that God's mercy and forgiveness extend to those who repent. Mercy does not mean approving of something that is sinful, but does absolve the wrongdoer after a change of heart takes place in the sinner through the gift of God's grace.
You know, we'll hardly get our feet out of time [and] into eternity that we'll bow our heads in shame and humiliation. We'll gaze on eternity and say, 'My God! Look at all the riches there were in Jesus Christ, and I've come to the Judgment Seat almost a pauper!
God has left that for the rest of time and eternity in order to give us something to do in the hereafter. We'll be able to learn more about the past and why things happened, as well as God's logic and purposes and the meaning of it all.