OBTAINING MERCY AND FINDING GRACE

We must obtain mercy and acquire grace to help us every time we are tempted.  Our text is teaching us that with every temptation we are in need of help. And help is available to us through the high priestly ministry of Jesus. If we will take God at His word (Matthew 11:28-30), and come to Him boldly, to the throne of grace, in our moment of need, we will receive two blessed realities. First we will obtain mercy. Mercy is the critical thing, and mercy is the most urgent need of the disciple of Christ. Because we are sinners, who are wounded in our souls, diseased, and brokenhearted, we must continuously be repenting, and crying out like the Publican, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Especially at the moment of temptation, when we are likely in a weakened state, we are need of mercy. Mercy is not understood in a judicial sense, that is, that you are not receiving judgment as you deserve. Mercy is to be understood in a medicinal sense, that is, you are on the receiving end of God’s steadfast love. Mercy (eleos in Greek which has the same root as the old Greek word for olive oil) is the healing oil poured into the diseased wounds of our souls (Luke 10:25-37). By obtaining mercy, that is, by receiving the healing balm (Jeremiah 8:22) for our souls, we can overcome the temptations that our weaknesses make us susceptible too (James 1:12-15). This is why we should pray “Lord have mercy” with such frequency. And why we are encouraged to often repeat the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. Secondly, we can acquire grace, that is, the divine energies of God Himself. This uncreated grace, will cause us to be supernaturally strengthened in the inner man (Ephesians 3:16). God imparts that part of Himself, that is, not His essence (nature), but His energies, to the child of God who calls upon Him in his time of need. God has elected to communicate his divine energies with His creatures that are in Christ Jesus (2 Peter 1:2-4)