"Rejoice In Mercy"

"For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee." (Psalms 86:5)  You can call that whatever you want; I will continue to call it amazing and far more than we could ever need or ask for. I need to know, when anyone out there first asked for God's forgiveness, did you expect to receive so much? I am willing to answer for you, by saying, Absolutely not! I would have been happy with just being forgiven and given eternal life. But God, who has so much more to give, He doesn't hold back anything from His children; even those of us that do not deserve any of it, He freely gives us so much more than we ever could even imagine. If you could list everything down upon a list, it would most likely stretch for miles; but we can't, because most of the stuff which would be contained upon that list hasn't even been granted yet. That is the part that I find to be so amazing, the hope in all that is to come; and it's all because of God's rich mercy. If not for mercy, I would still be left at the side of the road; never mind that He not only rescued me, but He placed me in "heavenly places," something I totally don't get, nor do I hardly deserve. But that's just it, it's not based upon me and my righteousness; it is based upon the righteousness of Christ Jesus: 'By His stripes I am healed.' That healing has absolutely nothing to do with this physical body. It's all about a spiritual healing, one which caused life to come where there once was nothing but death. And the craziness of all of that, is that I did not even know I was dead. Try explaining that to someone who does not know the Lord; they would just call you crazy and want nothing to do with you. What a glorious God we serve! His mercy truly is new every morning; even on those mornings when we feel so undeserving, He truly is "ready to forgive!" I think about Adam and Eve, and how God came to them ready to forgive them for the sin that they had committed, but they refused to own up to their own sin. Adam blamed the women whom God had given him; which in effect, he was blaming God, that God put this woman in his life, who then gave him the fruit to eat. Eve, she just blamed it on the devil; which in and of itself is just stupid, because if you know that God said don't do it, then why would anything anyone else say matter? Sure, you could say that she was deceived, but she was deceived because she wanted to be deceived; just like Adam sinned because he wanted to sin, not because the woman gave him the fruit. But God showed up showing mercy! And do you know what is even crazier still: they were hiding from God because they had sinned...
"Yes, Adam's one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ's one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous. God's law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God's wonderful grace became more abundant. So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God's wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 5:18-21) NLT