1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian When will you show you care? | Page 5

read that He just simply clothed them. I don’t know of a better reason for us to show
compassion to those in need than this one. We are told to be imitators of Christ and
by caring for the poor and under-privileged, we are doing just that.
Sometimes we over complicate the reasons for why we need to do the things that
God tells us to do. We try and rationalise them and justify them, but at the end of the
day, the greatest motivation of all is simply OBEDIENCE.
Prayer Thought: As you contemplate God’s action in clothing Adam and Eve today,
won’t you see afresh the passion that God has for people, despite their failures and
inadequacies. God understands our proneness to wander off the path, but because of
His deep love and passion for mankind He sets the example for us to do the same.

Wednesday
Matthew 18 v 21 – 35
The parable that you have just read was a parable that Jesus told to illustrate the
place for “mercy” in our lives. If one were to do a word study on the word “mercy”,
one would find in Scripture that Mercy is founded in Grace. Grace, however, is given
because of love, because that is the absolute attribute of God. If you were never born
and if mankind never existed, God would still be LOVE. When mankind came to this
world, God’s absolute attribute of love took on a “relative form” and became GRACE
to us. For those of us who have claimed the grace of God, MERCY would be a proof of
us having received His grace. The fact of the matter is, if you are a recipient of
God’s GRACE then you should be a giver of MERCY.
This truth is so beautifully illustrated in the parable of today’s reading. The reason
that the man was unable to give mercy to the person who owed him a pittance after
having been forgiven so huge a debt, was because this man did not understand the
wonder of the gift of grace that God had given him. I really believe that when we
understand how much we have been forgiven, we will find it much easier to forgive.
John 3 v 16 is possibly one of the most loved and well-known verses in the Bible.
Within this verse are encapsulated all three concepts of which we have just spoken.
The verse says, “God so loved the world…” (here it’s speaking of God’s absolute
attribute of love), the verse goes onto say, “…that he gave his only begotten Son…”
(how great this illustration of His grace, grace is always sacrificial). The verse
concludes, “…that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
This is a beautiful picture of God’s desire that grace should be seen in mercy