“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” ESV

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” NIV

Mercy is able to redeem the rebellious, but it’s what offends the self-righteous. Stay with me…

Have you ever heard of the Prodigal Son? You know, the kid who wished his dad were dead, ran away with his entire inheritance, lost it all, then ran back home, only expecting to become a servant…

What about his older brother? Do you remember him? 
I think I’ll call him the “Deserving” Son. (Since that is what he would like to be called.) 

Enter Scene Two: While his younger brother was thrown a party upon his return home, the Deserving Son was out in the field. He heard the music but wanted nothing to do with it. Out of his contempt, he kept working. Eventually, the Father comes out and tenderly pleads with him to come inside. But he snaps back, “I have been slaving away for you my whole life, yet you’ve never given me this type of celebration. Is my hard work and loyalty worth nothing to you?”...”I deserve this…he doesn’t.” 

I’ve come to realize that the opposite of mercy is this: bondage to expectations. 
Expectations that turn mercy into a wage.

If you haven’t realized it yet, the “Deserving” Son shows us the opposite of Matthew 5:7: 
“Bound are the unmerciful, for they refuse to receive mercy.” 
In other words, those who are unmerciful will be unwilling to receive it.

Not unlike the “Deserving” Son, we can make the same mistake if we place heavy expectations on others, all while keeping manageable ones for ourselves. This leaves us unable to show mercy to others who fall short of our unrealistic expectations, and refusing the gift of mercy for ourselves because we’d rather earn it. 

As it turns out, the Deserving Brother wasn’t deserving after all, was he? He just thought he was. In so doing, he became merciless. Don’t make the same mistake as the Merciless Brother, who was unwilling to enter into the joy of mercy when it was right in front of him.

If we don’t want to be stuck outside during the celebration, we all need to, at one point or another, realize we’re the undeserving child that needs to find our way back home. Realizing that if we receive anything when we do, it will be mercy, not a wage. 

Written by Blake Stanley