The Blessings of Humility Part 5

“Blessed are the merciful” (Matt 5:7). Mercy in it’s most basic form denotes a sense of pity or compassion for those in some state of misery. But sometimes it stands for forgiveness, as when the tax collector prayed, “God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). This is undoubtedly the sense in which Jesus used it here. The best description of this form of mercy is in the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt 18:23-35). The Master had pity on the servant who owed ten thousand talents and forgave him that tremendous debt. Shortly thereafter the servant encountered a fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii (a paltry sum relative to that which he had owed) and refused to forgive. The master, when he heard about it, said, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” (Matt 18:32-33).
The merciful, then, are those who realize how much they have been forgiven, and they readily forgive those who sin against them. Mercifulness begins with humility, with a deep sense of one’s own spiritual poverty coupled with a growing realization of how much one has been forgiven by God.

By Jerry Bridges from TableTalk magazine February 2008 p46