"God's Goodness"

"Yea, the LORD shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase." (Psalms 85:12) 
It might not seem like this falls in line with "Invoking God's Mercy," but before you go throwing out the baby with the bathwater, you might want to keep an open mind. I truly believe that part of God's mercy is giving that which is good. Some would tend to call that grace, and then move on to another subject; but before grace, acts of mercy do involve the simple things, like giving water and putting bandages on wounded souls. Grace is more about being lifted up to become something that we don't deserve; but having mercy is about feeding and caring for those that can't feed and care for themselves. I think that it's time we all start to understand what mercy involves, and how much we need to show mercy in order to understand how deep mercy actually goes. It really does not stop at forgiveness, it continues on much further, into restoration and healing. I think that once we put that into practice, we are on our way to actually being a real servant for the Lord. Much like the story of the "Good Samaritan," the mercy that he showed did not stop at coming to the aid of him that was beaten by thieves, it went further, to feeding and housing; making sure that the man was well taken care of, and helping him to be restored to a healthy condition. There was really no part of that story which involved grace, it was all about mercy and compassion. Grace would have involved something that the Samaritan man could not have provided, at least not to a Jew. We really don't need to fully understand how it all works, we just need to be obedient and put it into practice; it will all come into focus once we see how it works for ourselves...
"The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied with a story: "A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, 'Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here.' "Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?" Jesus asked. The man replied, "The one who showed him mercy." Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same."" (Luke 10:29-37) NLT