I will share about Christian books I have read or listened to.
I will be sharing about my life before and after Christ. I will include stories about my pet and other pets I have encountered.
Why Do We Turn Away From God’s Mercy?
As Jesus gazed over Jerusalem, His heart broke. He longed to gather its people like a mother hen gathers her chicks—fragile, helpless, and in desperate need of care. But they didn’t want His care.
It's tragic: the ones who most need mercy reject it. Throughout history, God had sent prophets to guide his people, and they killed them. By the end of Holy Week, they would kill Jesus too—the ultimate prophet and the source of their salvation.
Why do we turn away from God’s mercy? Often, it’s because we struggle to believe it’s for us. In our world, mercy feels foreign—too good to be true. But Jesus doesn’t operate like the world.
In this verse, we see that offering mercy is His deepest longing. The cross reveals just how far He’s willing to go to ensure we get what we don’t deserve—His love, grace, and forgiveness—and don’t get what we do deserve—death.
Jesus is aching to gather us into His care. His mercy is marked and matchless. He isn’t hesitant or reluctant; He’s longing to embrace us.
Let’s believe this mercy is real. Let’s receive it with grateful hearts and give thanks to the One who is quite literally dying to extend it to us.
Don’t Lose Heart
As we start getting older, our bodies begin to change.
Muscles might ache. Hair might gradually turn gray. Vision and hearing might eventually get less sharp. And we, or someone we love, might even struggle with significant or devastating health challenges.
The apostle Paul once offered some ageless wisdom to the believers in Corinth, Greece, which can still be helpful for us today:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
2 Corinthians 4:16 NIV
Paul knew what it was like to face hard things; he’d been beaten, shipwrecked, snake bitten, and imprisoned.
Earlier in the letter, he’d said, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NIV)
The ripple effects of sin’s existence in the world might frustrate us physically, but it ...
