1 Peter 1:3

My senior year of high school, I took a class on HTML.  I liked the class and found it to be fairly easy. There were two freshman who sat to my right who did not find it to be so easy. The girl next to me would ask me TONS of questions which I answered. The boy next to her would generally ask her the same questions and she either wouldn't answer him or begrudgingly answer him and get mad at him for asking. One day after she didn't help him with the same question she had just asked me, I told them both the story of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35). No idea why they listened to me – maybe because I was a senior they thought they had to. But at least for that class period, she helped him.

In the story of the unmerciful servant, there is a king who realizes he has a servant that owes him 10,000 talents. When the servant is brought before the king, he cannot pay his debt and so the king shows mercy and cancels the debt. The servant then sees a man who owes him 100 denarii. (It's generally said to be millions of dollars versus a few hundred dollars. This guy says it's even more drastic of an amount though: http://chimes.biola.edu/story/2010/oct/27/parable-two-debtors/) The servant demands that the man pay him the 100 denarii. When he cannot do so, the servant has him thrown in jail. People go tell the king what happened, and the king reprimands him and throws him in jail. Even after being shown great mercy, this servant does not reciprocate.

Baker's Bible Dictionary says mercy is "compassion and love expressed in tangible ways." The compassion and love of the king is expressed quite tangibly when he cancels the 10,000 talent that the servant owes him. That's what I tend to think of when I think of mercy. Canceling significant debt.

We owe a debt much greater than 10,000 talents. Our sin is a debt we cannot repay. In Romans we are told the wages of sin is death. God loves us and has compassion on us and shows it in a tangible way. He sends Jesus to live a perfect life and die on the cross as a way to cancel the debt of our sins.

1 Peter 1:3 says. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." When we recognize that because of God's mercy we can be born again, we should most certainly bless Him!

Prayer: God, I am thankful for your great mercy. Thank you for salvation through the death and resurrection of your son Jesus Christ. Thank you for the hope that gives believers.

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These are some of my thoughts after reading the Verse of the Day on my YouVersion Bible app.