Variety: Matthew 5v7

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy (Matthew 5v7)

• Mercy is the bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever, despite our sinfulness. We see God’s mercy supremely in the life of Jesus. (Pope Francis)
• The gospel merciful are… those who put themselves under another to support them, to be sensitive to them, even to feel sad with them.  (Frederick Bruner)
• whereas grace is a loving response when love is undeserved; mercy is a loving response prompted by the misery and helplessness of the one in whom love is shown. (Don Carson)
• Those who are merciful are kind to people in serious need. Their mercy is marked by generosity and by emotional identification with the situation of those trapped in their need… It is costly in a variety of ways. (John Nolland)
• Mercy is not an attitude, but an activity and is something to be done.  (Paul Beasley Murray)
• An ideal is not yours until it comes out of your fingertips (Florence Allhorn)
• Mercy is“a generous attitude, which is willing to see things from another person’s point of view and is not quick to take offence or to gloat over their shortcomings/  Mercy sets aside society’s assumptions that it is honourable to demand to revenge. (Dick France)
• Being merciful is not a condition for God’s grace, but is a necessary consequence. If we do not reflect God’s loving-kindness, then it is because we have never grasped it in the first place. (Paul Beasley Murray)