Deliverance: Mercy - David Mitts

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. (Mat 5:7)


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Giving Opportunity Message
Givelify

 

Deliverance is a process of transformation from the thinking and actions of the world into the freedom of the kingdom of God. Like a piece of mail, deliverance isn’t just about the sending but also the destination. Israel didn’t just come out of Egypt. Israel was delivered into their destiny in the Land of Promise. We weren’t just delivered from sin and the world system but also into our destiny in the kingdom.

Yeshua transformed many things as Messiah. One of the transformations was the moving of the Kingdom of God from a physical location to an internal kingdom.

nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21)

One of the keys to accessing the kingdom within is the ability to release the need for judgment. Judgment traps us in grip of the judgments.

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. (Mat 7:1-2)

Judgment comes from the self-protective need to discern good and evil in our world. The power source of judgment relates back to the garden when the serpent promised us that if we ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we would become “like” God, having our eyes “opened” and we would then be able to discern good and evil.

For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Gen 3:5)

The eyes are the gateway of illumination for the body. They determine how we see life. The opening that the serpent is promising is the opening that produces in us selective attention based on our perceptions of what we need to “know” about a situation and in that knowing become “god” in that situation “knowing good and evil”. This is what drives our judgments that then become our gateways to reality, the doors of perception.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (Mat 6:21-24)

Often, we think of mammon and the treasure aspect of this passage in regard to our values and how we steward our resources, which is definitely true. But I want to look under the hood on this one. The eye is the lamp of the whole body. Illumination limits action. We can only feel free to move in terms of what we can see.

“Then the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.” (Habakkuk 2:2)

Think of steering a car or a boat and being in a dense fog. The fog limits our ability to know what is safe for us to navigate. Yeshua is telling us that our “eye”, our perception, fills our whole being with light or darkness. That in term defines who and what we serve. Mammon is this context is the system that darkness reveals to us, a kingdom of lies and opinions about life that are rooted in pain and the desire to be in control to avoid more pain, thus becoming like a “god” and defining our own sets of rules about what is good or evil, right or wrong. In this place it is impossible to serve God!

This is the fruit of judgments! How do we break free? We loose ourselves from the need to judge.

"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." (Mat 16:19)

Keys unlock chains that keep us stuck in place. We can use the keys of the kingdom to get free from our evil perceptions!

Today I want to look a tool for that loosening, mercy. James tells us that mercy is a power key to release ourselves from our own judgments.

For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment. (Jas 2:13)

Mercy is the key to releasing us from the bondage of judgment which is called “merciless” or without mercy. This tells me that mercy is the antidote to judging.

What is mercy?

In Hebrew mercy is defined from two words: chesed and racham.

Chesed is used this way for mercy:

“Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me, and I die.” (Genesis 19:19)

In this context Lot is being warned by the angels to flee Sodom, a city under God’s judgment. Clearly mercy has been extended to him by God.

Looking at the Hebrew word picture for chesed, we see three letters, the “chet, the samech, and the dalet”. This word is also often translated as loving-kindness or compassion.

The letters, the chet is the picture of a protective hedge or fence, the dalet is a doorway into a protective place, the samech originally was the picture of a device that pierces like a sword, or a needle. I think of the composite picture like the opening of a strongly guarded safe where the treasures of the home are kept. Going back to Matthew 6:21, this becomes a picture of the heart and mercy, or compassion is the force that can pierce the heart. Why does the heart need piercing? The heart can become hardened by judgments. The anger and self-protection that are the heart’s natural response harden us and can make us quick to judge. We need chesed, God’s mercy and compassion to break through the hardness and reawaken us to love.

The second word that appears more in the prophetic writings is racham.

And I will show you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and cause you to return to your own land.' (Jer 42:12)

Because racham is used more in terms of the fulfilment of prophetic destiny, this is the kind of mercy that moves the heart of those connected to prophetic fulfillment. Nehemiah prayed for this kind of mercy:

O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man." For I was the king's cupbearer. (Neh 1:11).

Looking at the Hebrew there are three letters, “reysh” “chet” and “mem”. Mem is the picture of water and symbolizes the randomness of life, chaotic and unpredictable. The chet is the encircling or protecting hedge or fence and reysh is the authority of the mind of God. The composite picture is Genesis 1 where God speaks order to chaos in the form of light. In terms of mercy in a prophetic context God is bringing life and purpose to the uncertainty that happens when we walk alone without Him.

Racham is also related to relational mercy. Where chesed is about mercy that penetrates judgment in the heart, racham penetrates inequities is relationships and brings God’s favor to the key relationships that impact our destiny.

In either case mercy racham or chesed is essential to manifest our purpose and destiny.

Mercy Activation: Compassion and forgiveness. In order to truly have compassion and forgiveness we need revelation. It is often our perspective that keeps us from experiencing healing. Yeshua said in the parable of the sower and the seed: so that, "'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'" (Mar 4:12). Perceiving through the eyes and heart of another softens our heart and can lead us to return to the tenderness of connectedness. Pray and ask the Lord to open the eyes of your heart so that you might have mercy, be released from judgments and fulfill your destiny!


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