living out mercy

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

9 Then Jesus went over to their synagogue,10 where he noticed a man with a deformed hand. The Pharisees asked Jesus, "Does the law permit a person to work by healing on the Sabbath?" (They were hoping he would say yes, so they could bring charges against him.)
11 And he answered, "If you had a sheep that fell into a well on the Sabbath, wouldn't you work to pull it out? Of course you would.12 And how much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Yes, the law permits a person to do good on the Sabbath."
13 Then he said to the man, "Hold out your hand." So the man held out his hand, and it was restored, just like the other one!14 Then the Pharisees called a meeting to plot how to kill Jesus.

matthew 12

alright, i'm going to start skipping around in the gospel of matthew because i realized that i've gone over a lot of these same passages already haha.

here we have Jesus being tested by the pharisees. they want to catch Him messing up by getting Him to answer that it's ok to heal people on the sabbath. this shows how far off track that these men, these "followers of God," had gotten. they had made up so many rules so that they wouldn't break the old testament laws that they would let people go on hurting than dare to break the law. Jesus comes in to correct this misinterpretation of the law. if we look in the passage before this one and a couple passages before that, we hear Jesus saying that He desires mercy, not sacrifices. more than our religious traditions and rituals, He desires mercy. He desires true love and compassion for other people. yes, we have these certain traditions for a reason, to honor, to remember, to reflect, etc. but! it should never take the place of true LIVING for God.

the pharisees made it into religion. a system of rules and regulations that was devoid of love or fault. but today, we see a lot of us doing the same thing. we see a lot of christians caring more about being on time to church than helping someone who is in need on their way to church. what's more important? mercy? or sacrifice? don't we realize that we're honoring God even more by sacrificing our time to have mercy on other people? whereas, when we're just upholding these laws that we are having anything but mercy on others. there are some people on the other side of the fence too, though. there are people who throw the holiness, the beauty, of the sabbath to the side and don't honor it at all. i'm guilty of it myself. almost every sunday, for a while, i didn't think about God at all. i was just worrying about the next week or what i was supposed to get done that day. even when i set time aside to have a sabbath on another day of the week, i ended up spending zero time with God. sure, i got rest for myself, but i didn't get any rest in Him. i defeated the whole purpose of sabbath. i didn't remember Him, i didn't honor Him, i didn't let Him into that day to fill me up. like everything, there has to be a balance. there has to be a balance of not making following God into just a bunch of rules and regulations that are lacking in love. and there has to be a balance of not making following God a game, something that can be put on and off and taken not seriously at all.

i think it means really considering what you're doing. what having mercy on people really requires. what having true compassion and empath for people asks us to do to get out of our comfort zones. maybe it means just getting a drink with someone who is hurting, to be with them, to share and comfort them. i'm sure that having compassion on that person is so much bigger and more important than not drinking. i honestly hate parties. as in the loud music, lots of drinking, people running around making weirdos out of themselves. but if it means that i can somehow grow closer to someone and eventually have them feel comfortable enough with me to ask me about Jesus, i'm all for it. and i don't mean go off and do something completely off the charts like crash your car into a house so you can relate with someone who did the same thing, use discernment and wisdom. but i do mean to really look at the situation and ask, "how do i live out mercy in this?" instead of just passing up the opportunity. we saw Jesus do the same things, eating with the outcasts of society, having a party with the hated and despised, healing the gentiles, for us, non-christians. and honestly, i'd rather be like Jesus than the pharisees.