Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity – Thursday

Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. – Matthew 5:7.

True Christians, God’s children, are known to be merciful. For their faith daily teaches and reminds them that it is only and exclusively by the mercy of God that they are what they are. And this light of divine mercy is reflected in their regenerated hearts.

They also hear their Savior say: “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:36). And the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Father and of Christ, working through the Word of God, makes them merciful. The seed of mercy germinates and sprouts and buds and blossoms and bears fruit within their hearts, which by nature indeed are sinful and, hence, unmerciful. For the new birth is mightier than the carnal birth.

True Christians, God’s children, are to be merciful toward friend and foe, toward fellow-believers and toward such as adhere to false doctrines, toward rich and poor, indeed, toward everybody.

Mercy is the element in which they live, as a fish lives in water and a bird in the air. They are blessed. For they, too, obtain mercy, even in this present time, from God, their Father, as well as from their brethren and sisters in the faith. And one day, on the day of Christ’s reappearing, theirs shall be a bliss inexpressible, when by God’s mercy they shall bask in His never-ending mercies.

PRAYER – Merciful God, in whose mercy I live and have my being, whose mercies never fail, endure forever, and shall finally lead me to heaven: Take me, a poor sinner, I implore Thee, and make me ever more and more like Thee. My Father, I desire to bear Thine image more and more, for I love Thee. And I would have all men to know that I am Thy child. Make me ever more merciful, even as Thou art merciful! Amen.

O God of mercy, God of might,

In love and pity infinite,

Teach us, as ever in Thy sight,

To live our life to Thee.

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Teach us the lesson Thou hast taught,

To feel for those Thy blood hath bought,

That ev’ry word and deed and thought

May work a work for Thee.

Hymn 439, 1. 3.(TLH)