Take the Mercy

“For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is–limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death–He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.”–Dorthy Sayers

 

Before the universe began, from all eternity, Christ was in God. Since the birth of humanity, he has been a living Word. Then he dwelt among us on earth as a poor man. Risen from the dead, by the Holy Spirit he remains alongside each person.

 

 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”—John 1:14

 

Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help. –Hebrews 4:16-17 (The MSG)

 

Jesus, we are thankful that you ‘walked in our shoes’ and you know our pain and struggles intimately through first hand experience.  Thank you that you are with us even now and forevermore. 

 

 

 

 

 

Compassion-to suffer with

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Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow man throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger.  Give them, through our hands this day their daily bread, and by our understanding love give peace and joy.  Lord make me a channel of thy peace, that where there is hatred I may bring love; that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness; that where there is discord, I may bring harmony; that where there is error, I may bring truth, where there is doubt-faith, where there is despair-hope; where there are shadows-light; where there is sadness-joy.  Lord grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted; to understand than to be understood, to love than be loved, for it is by forgetting self that one finds it; by dying that one awakens to eternal life—Amen-Mother Theresa and St. Francis of Assisi

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