By A.W. Tozer
Editor’s Note: Too often our 21st century ears are quite sensitive to Truth we desperately need. We slowly walk backwards if we see soul-bearing Truth in our path a slight ways ahead. Then, we turn and high-tail it the other way. Tozer raises the mirror so we see our American selves. May we gaze, learn, and not run.
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Mercy is God’s goodness confronting human guilt and suffering, and all men are recipients of this mercy. There is not an atheist on the continent that is not the recipient of God’s mercy.
If God should let His justice loose without mercy, God could justly rain fire on the North American continent. We are so proud of ourselves here in the United States. We are proud that we live lives such as we do in comparison to the rest of the world. If justice had its way—unrestrained and without mercy, God would rain fire from the Rio Grande to the Hudson Bay. All men are recipients of the mercy of God. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and mercy postpones that execution.
Justice and judgment are God’s way of confronting iniquity; but God’s mercy spares us and postpones the execution. Even those who shake their fists in God’s face are recipients of God’s mercy or else they would be destroyed right on the spot. God’s mercy gives people a chance to back away from their life and repent and put their trust in Jesus as Savior. Without that mercy, no man would stand.
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A. W. Tozer & James Snyder, ed.. My Daily Pursuit: Devotions for Every Day. Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker Publishing Group. 2013. 384 pp. $11.62.
Used by permission.
T.P. Scheiderer 