My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. At this point in our study, we will begin with “A God Merciful and Gracious”, the twenty-third Name of God on my list. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
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| A GOD MERCIFUL AND GRACIOUS |
| Psalm 86:15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. |
| What a good way to start out with on our third phase in the Names of God series. Merciful and Gracious. As I new believer in the church, I was told that grace is getting what you don’t deserve, and mercy is not getting what I deserve. Does that make sense? Yet, this merciful term has a bit more to it that just not getting what we deserve, as if that didn’t provide enough to be blessed by. This word “merciful” also includes the concept of compassion and somewhat surprised me when I think of merciful. Remember, merciful, in my mind, speaks of the refrain of some action or judgement upon a person that deserves it. To add the idea of compassion brings to mind the motivation behind the my concept of mercy. When I consider the mercy of God, I commonly think only of the actions of the Lord (or better said, the refraining of rightful actions) and not His motivation in refraining from a judgement. Yet our God is a compassionate God, a God whose heart is that of a Father, seeking the best for His children, teaching, guiding, warning and loving His children. The second term only strengthens this thought, for the psalmist reminds us of the graciousness of our God, a descriptor that blows up for us in the New Covenant. But for God to be understood as gracious is definitely not only a New Testament descriptor, for there are multitudinous passages referring to our God as gracious in the Old Covenant. Moses, the law giver, did not understand God to be a harsh, dictatorial God, but when Moses met God, after he destroyed the first two tablets of the law, God began His self revelation to Moses, with the very same description we are considering today Exodus 34:6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, Moses, out of anger in seeing the Israelites sinning, through down the tablets of the law, a picture of us all “breaking the law”. And God reveals Himself as a God merciful and gracious. Our God is a most surprising God and His name is to be praised |
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion.
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If the LORD God Most High were not loving and merciful and zealous with His Private Property, the Kingdom, souls, and His Creation, would not have offered His Only Begotten SON as an Eternal Sacrifice for the RESCUE of those 1/3 WITHOUT judgment who fell from Heaven together with Satan.
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