Mercy means not getting from God what we do deserve. Grace means getting from God what we do not deserve or receiving unmerited favor. In both we deserve hell due to our hard hearts, yet God does offers us life if we reach out in faith and accept it. We have to start with a correct acceptance of our position before God as unholy sinners. From there we can understand that how God treats us is not what we deserve but just the opposite.
In both cases, we see the goodness and love of God. Tozer says that mercy and grace are actually one attribute but expressed toward us in two different ways. Identical yet seen as separate. He gives His goodness and love even though we are guilty of sin and have done absolutely nothing to earn or merit it. He looks on our miserable condition and decides to show love, favor, compassion, and pardon despite our ability to deserve it. Remember the song, Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.
Let’s remember that mercy and grace flow through all of God’s divine nature and attributes. They are all interconnected, so God’s mercy and grace are infinite, boundless, and eternal. There is no beginning and it will never cease to be, forever His mercy stands. They are continuously active and inexhaustibly flowing with love and compassion. There will never be more mercy or less grace coming from God. God doesn’t use up an attribute and have to recharge, there is always a sufficient supply or every person. Just as nothing can separate us from His love, nothing can change or extinguish the tender mercy and grace of God. When we rightly understand this attribute of God, we see our unworthiness and God’s overflowing mercy and grace and that should bring us to a place of thankfulness for all He is and all He give to us.
God's word proclaims this attribute. [Dan 9:9] The Lord our God is MERCIFUL and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against Him. [Is 63:9b] In His love and MERCY He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. [Ps 78:38] Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath.
God’s mercy and grace in the world often goes unseen and is taken for granted. You might not know about His mercy and grace if He didn’t put you in a position or a particular circumstance where He can extend it to you. [Luke 1:50] His MERCY extends to those who fear Him. We almost always see His mercy best when we are at our worst or are in misery and pain. He picks us up again and again when we fail and He leads us into right living.
God’s mercy remains constant, it is not a temporary disposition. God’s mercy is boundless, free and, through Jesus Christ our Lord, available to us now in our present situation. In Paul’s teachings when he talked about grace, he always associated God’s grace with God’s crucified Son. The two are found together like one thought embracing both, inseparable. God’s grace flows out to man through Jesus Christ who was crucified, died, and then rose from the dead. When man encounters grace, it is always by Jesus.
God’s mercy comes after the payment of sin and Jesus Christ completed and paid for the sins of the whole world on the cross. The bible says, “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” This is the ultimate act of mercy and grace by a good God through His Son. It was such a high penalty that God says, no one can be saved other than by all that My Son.
How are we to respond? [Rom 12:1] In view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. [Luke 6:36] Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
