God is Merciful

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt an overwhelming sense of compassion for someone, or more often, noticed a lack of compassion for others? When it comes to God, we see throughout the Bible that He is overwhelmingly compassionate towards us. A perfect example is Jonah, who was told to go to Nineveh to share a message of truth with the wicked Assyrian people. The Assyrians, by every right, deserved judgment and punishment, and Jonah knew it. Yet God had compassion on the people and did not want them to perish, so He extended mercy by giving them an opportunity to repent and turn to Him. When the Assyrians repented, God extended ultimate mercy, not punishing them but forgiving them. This week, we will learn about this amazing attribute of God—how He extends mercy to us and how He expects us to be merciful as He is merciful. We know that this is one of the hardest attributes for us to embody, as it can be difficult to have compassion for others as Jesus did. Let’s explore this amazing attribute and see how we can embody it ourselves.