Discovering the Treasures He Offers

     He has brought us out of the darkness and placed us into His marvelous light! We were born and raised in a dark place or in the sin -filled world. When we accepted Christ, we were immediately translated to the Kingdom of God! What a mysterious and marvelous miracle. We then became aliens of the world; foreign to it's ways.
     The walking out of that reality is an awe inspiring and sometimes confusing thing. The reason I am using the word "confusing" is that when we are placed in the Kingdom of God  our minds still have to be renewed, and for many years we operate from  our former faulty perspectives and mindsets, which have been programmed by self-protection. Because we were without Christ then, we were all we had to find our way, and we worked out ways to take care of ourselves. We believed that these ways were right and good and wise.
     Enter Christ in us, and the Kingdom He is Lord of. All the treasures of salvation seem strange and foreign to us at first, almost unbelieveable!!! We continue to fight for ourselves when we don't have to. We are offered things from His hand we think we don't deserve, so on some level, we reject them, even unknowingly.
     Take mercy for example. In James 2:13 it says, "Mercy triumps over judgement." I've often wondered just what that means. Today God opened up a ray of light to me, as to the understanding.
Let's say someone has judged themselves guilty in a matter. Their  unrenewed reasoning says, "If someone is guilty, they don't deserve to receive. It just doesn't make sense. It seems like they are being rewarded for bad behavior."
     What if living on this side of the cross, Jesus offers mercy to them in the form of something He has died for on the cross? First He renders us guiltless in giving us His righteousness, and then He wants us to receive the many aspects of His salvation He offers to us. The  "guilty" person is stuck in their old covenant thinking of an eye for an eye, and they are applying that against themselves.
    But "Mercy triumphs over Judgement," in the New Covenant!! We need His mercy the most when we have done wrong, He knows that, and offers us what will heal our sinfulness in the form of forgiveness, or mercy. Pushing that away is stubbornly relying on our own justice system, and denying that which will truly help us. He does this all in Love, as He looks beyond what we deserve, and gives us what we need: His Love in the form of His Mercy. We don't need to be shamed so we don't do it again. It doesn't work. It's not helpful. It keeps us under.
     That person has been me. I thought I needed to do things right and then it would seem fitting that I could receive. (All of this was happening on a level I couldn't see, and so it was only God who had to show me what I was operating under.) I thought it made more sense, but He knew I couldn't (be perfect) and offered me a way out! What kind of love is that? A love beyond compare,and the only kind that brings the Kingdom ways into us as we receive them. I am in awe of His rescuing, life-giving Love today. I am grateful that His mercy has triumphed over my judgement. I am now feeling more at home in His heart, and as He continues to renew my mind, I will know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I belong there because He's welcomed me unconditionally.