God's Mercy That Never Runs Dry!

"Mercy Fountain"

Come, thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing thy grace
Streams of mercy, never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise!
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it
Mount of God’s unchanging love!

And the Lord was with Joseph, and poured down mercy upon him . . . . Genesis 39:21

The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, In those who hope in His mercy. Psalm 147:11

Blessed be the LORD! for he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy. Psalm 28:6

Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; But he who trusts in the LORD, mercy shall surround him. Psalm 32:10

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again . . . . 1 Peter 1:3

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved . . . . Ephesians 2:4-5 

For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. Romans 9:15-18

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort . . . . 2 Corinthians 1:3

Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:36

Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, That we may rejoice and be glad all our days! Psalm 90:14

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head. 

- William Cowper

Mercy is a glorious, precious, Bible word! 

Precept Austin has some helpful word studies on mercy here: Word Study O.T.; Word Study N.T. And this meditation on God's mercy from Thomas Watson is glorious: The Mercy Of God

This past year (a hard year for me), our Triune God has used a broken fire hydrant right outside of our church building to remind me of God's everlasting, never-ending, unstoppable mercy that is new every morning - that is chasing me down all the days of my life (even in the hard things!) - and that abounds more and more to always cover all of my sin! God's mercy is the mercy that flows to me from the Mercy Tree because that's where Jesus, the ultimate Mercy given by God, died for me. This hymn nails it:

Thy mercy is Jesus exempts me from hell

Its glories I'll sing, and its wonders I'll tell

'Twas Jesus my all, as He hung on the tree

Who opened the channel of mercy for me! (John Stocker)

This "Mercy Fountain" fire hydrant has been continuously (literally 24/7!) pouring out water for several months now. I've called the water department. I've told the local fire station. Someone even came out to fix it, but they were unsuccessful. It just keeps flowing. And it reminds me of God's ever flowing, never ceasing mercy:

Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." Lamentations 3:19–24 

Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:6

. . . where sin increased, grace abounded all the more . . . . Romans 5:20

On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness. Zechariah 13:1

Oh yes! An everlasting fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins has been opened to wash away all of our sins! This reminder of God's mercies new every morning is the first thing I see every day that I step outside my house:

This ever-flowing, broken fire hydrant reminds me of God's lavish, everlasting mercy. In the good times, it's still flowing. In the bad times, it's still flowing (Even when Joseph was thrown into the pit by his brothers, falsely accused by Potiphar's wife and thrown into prison, and forgotten in prison, it was still God's mercy chasing him down and working all things for good!). At 7am, it's still flowing. At midnight, it's still flowing. Always flowing. Ever flowing. Never letting up. Never decreasing it's output. Every morning. Every night. Every hour. Every day. Every week - it goes on and on and on - just like God's mercy!

Furthermore, the water I see leaking out of this hydrant is just a drop in the bucket: 60 million gallons of drinking water leak out of Philadelphia pipes every single day! In the same way, there are great multitudes of other mercies that God is pouring out on us every single day that we're not even aware of, see, or understand!

God's mercy is a prominent, powerful, perpetual, pervasive, personal theme in my life. God has mercifully taught me many glorious truths about Himself. God showed me great mercy in college. I love movies that highlight God's mercy. One of my favorite devotional articles ever is about God's mercy (And now this one too!). One of my favorite chapters in the Bible, 2 Chronicles 20, has praise to God and His mercy at the center. Almost every time I read the Bible devotionally, I pray that God would satisfy me with His mercy that I might be joyful in Him all my days. God has shown me so much mercy through the preaching of His Word. I wrote a hymn based on the book of Jonah called "Mercy-Heart". I attempted to write a book on trusting God in the midst of rejection in romantic relationships that I wanted to title: Mercy No. God showed me great mercy at one point in my life when I thought His salvation was totally out of my reach. In the future, I would like to name one of my daughters Mercy. Even God calling me into the ministry was mercy. Oh what lavish mercy I have received from my King Jesus!

According to David Mathis in this excellent article on mercy, "Fittingly, the most prominent request made of Jesus in the Gospels is, 'Have mercy on me!'" Amen! See more here. Praise God that His mercy is always more than our sin through Jesus Christ - our crucified, risen, and reigning God-Man! Jesus' perfect life, wrath-bearing death for sin, resurrection from the dead, and ascension to heaven where He rules, reigns, and intercedes for us is the foundation of all mercy! This is the Gospel!

In his helpful book, The Pleasures Of God, John Piper writes:

Not only does God promise not to turn away from doing good to us, he says, "I will rejoice in doing them good" (Jeremiah 32:41). "The LORD will again take delight in prospering you" (Deuteronomy 30:9). He does not bless us begrudgingly. There is a kind of eagerness about the beneficence of God. He does not wait for us to come to him. He seeks us out, because it is his pleasure to do us good. "The eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show his might in behalf of those whose heart is whole toward him" (2 Chronicles 16:9). God is not waiting for us, he is pursuing us. That, in fact, is the literal translation of Psalm 23:6, "Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life." I have never forgotten how a great teacher once explained it to me. He said God is like a highway patrolman pursuing you down the interstate with lights flashing and siren blaring to get you to stop - not to give you a ticket, but to give you a message so good it couldn't wait till you get home. 

God loves to show mercy. Let me say it again. God loves to show mercy. He is not hesitant or indecisive or tentative in his desires to do good to his people. His anger must be released by a stiff safety lock, but his mercy has a hair trigger. That's what he meant when he came down on Mount Sinai and said to Moses, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love" (Exodus 34:6). The point is the contrast between the sluggishness of his anger and the effusiveness of his love. (Pages 184-185)

And again Piper writes: 

God is never irritable or edgy. His anger never has a short fuse. Instead he is infinitely energetic with absolutely unbounded and unending enthusiasm for the fulfillment of his delights. This is hard for us to comprehend, because we have to sleep every day just to cope, not to mention thrive. Our emotions go up and down. We get bored and discouraged one day and feel hopeful and excited another. We are like little geysers that gurgle and sputter and pop erratically. But God is like a great Niagara Falls — you look at 186,000 tons of water crashing over the precipice every minute, and think: Surely this can’t keep going at this force year after year after year. Yet it does. That’s the way God is about doing us good. He never grows weary of it. It never gets boring to him. The Niagara of his grace has no end.

Amen! Hallelujah! What a Savior!

May we continuously be stunned my God's mercy in Christ that never runs dry! And if you need help, cry out for mercy! If you are tempted, cry out for mercy! If you are in sin, cry out for mercy! If you are alone, cry out for mercy! If you are afraid, cry out for mercy! If you are anxious, cry out for mercy! If you fear losing your mother or father, cry out for mercy! If you are in a hard marriage, cry out for mercy! If you lose your spouse, cry out for mercy! If you lose your children, cry out for mercy! If you lose your parents, cry out for mercy! If you lose your health, cry out for mercy! If you're single and long for marriage, cry out for mercy! If your children are born with disabilities, cry out for mercy! If you are falsely accused and slandered, cry out for mercy! If your spouse threatens to leave you, cry out for mercy! If you're sinned against, cry out for mercy! If circumstances in your life are so bad and hard and you are overwhelmed and just want to give up and die, cry out to God for mercy! For His mercy fountain NEVER runs dry! Jesus, strong and kind will help you! Trust your Savior Jesus, and cry out for mercy!

To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us . . . Psalm 123:1-3

I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the LORD: "O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!" Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful. Psalm 116:1-5

I love how Chad Bird writes about the Hebrew word for mercy here:

Untranslatable Love חֶסֶד

Multiple Hebrew words have simply migrated into English, such as amen, hallelujah, cherub, and hosanna.

I wish the same had happened with חֶסֶד (chesed), for there is no simple equivalent in our language. It’s been translated as “unfailing love, steadfast love, mercy, loving-kindness, faithfulness, goodness, graciousness.”

But attempting to squeeze a huge word like chesed into one tiny English word is like trying to catch a waterfall in a cup.

In one of the Psalms we read today in Bible in One Year (https://www.1517.org/oneyear), Psalm 36, the word chesed appears three times:

Vs. 5, “Your chesed, O LORD, extends to the heavens…”

Vs. 7, “How precious is your chesed, O God!”

Vs. 10, “Oh, continue your chesed to those who know you…”

Chesed is truly untranslatable love. No-holds-barred mercy. Covenant faithfulness even if it costs God the lifeblood of his beloved Son. Chesed is the beating heart of God in cruciform display. The kind of love that chases us to the ends of the earth, picks us up, places us atop divine shoulders, and dances all the way home.

There really is only one word that encompasses the totality of what chesed is—Christ Himself. He is the chesed of the Father made flesh.

“Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your chesed, for they have been from of old” (Ps. 25:6).

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

More Of My Blog Posts On Mercy

The Beautiful Mercy-Heart Of Jesus Christ!

Great Mercy In Christ!

Christ: The Fountain Of Mercy At Just The Right Time

Christ The Mercy-Heart!

How His Mercy Endures Forever!

May We Be Moved To Sing About Jesus And His Mercy!

All The Way My Savior Leads Me

All the way my Savior leads me, What have I to ask beside?

Can I doubt His tender mercy, Who through life has been my Guide?

Heavenly peace, divinest comfort, Here by faith in Him to dwell!

For I know, whate’er befall me, Jesus doeth all things well.

All the way my Savior leads me, Cheers each winding path I tread,

Gives me grace for every trial, Feeds me with the living bread. Though my weary steps may falter,

And my soul athirst may be; Gushing from the rock before me, Lo! a spring of joy I see!

All the way my Savior leads me, Oh, the fullness of His love!

Perfect rest to me is promised, In my Father’s house above;

When my spirit, clothed immortal, Wings its flight to realms of day.

This my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way.

My Favorite Songs About Mercy

1. Mercy Tree

2. His Mercy Is More

3. Thy Mercy, My God

4. Jesus, Your Mercy

5. All Because Of Mercy

6. Have Mercy

7. Mercy-Heart