At church, the pastor has been preaching about the beatitudes. A few weeks ago he got to, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy” and shared the parable of the parable of the unmerciful servant (Matt. 18:21-35).

³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’”

How often do we refuse to extend mercy to others, forgetting the mercy Christ extended to us?

For me, I know it’s fairly often. People get on my nerves. They offend me. They don’t do things the way I’d like them to. They refuse to own up to their actions and apologize when they’ve done something wrong and they probably never will. But that doesn’t let me off the hook when it comes to extending mercy.

Matt Redman’s song “Mercy” is part of the regular worship set at our church and I catch my singing it sometimes throughout the day as a reminder to always be merciful. After all, Christ has shown endless mercy to me.