BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL

FOR THEY SHALL OBTAIN MERCY (MATT. 5:7)

Mercy:  merciful,something in which to be thankful for, a disposition to be forgiving, to be kind

merciful: full of mercy,compassionate

Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy

obtain : to succeed in gaining possession of as a result of planning

cross reference: Blessed is he that considereth the poor the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble (Psalm 41:1)

we find  a good example of mercy in Luke 10:30-35

here we have  a man who was attacked, stripped naked & left for dead

(30) And Jesus answering saying a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho & fell among thieves which stripped him of his raiment  & wounded him & departed leaving him half dead

then there was two people  that came by, seeing him in the ditch, what does the word say they  did

(31-32)and by chance there came down a certain priest that way & when he saw him he passed by on the other side *and likewise a Levite when he was at the place came & looked on him & passed by on the other side

now you would of thought surely the priest would of stopped to check on him  to pray for him , something! but he passed him by as well as the Levite, these are surely thoughts we would have today but in Bible days there were laws

Priests were supposed to be ritually clean--exemplars of the law. There would be immediate shame and embarrassment suffered by them at the expense of the people and their peers for such defilement. Having just completed his mandatory two weeks of service, he would then need to return and stand at the Eastern Gate along with the rest of the unclean. Furthermore, in addition to the humiliation involved, the process of restoring ritual purity was time-consuming and costly. It required finding, buying, and reducing a red heifer to ashes, and the ritual took a full week. The priest is in a predicament. Moreover, he cannot approach closer than four cubits to a dead man without being defiled, and he will have to overstep that boundary just to ascertain the condition of the wounded man.

read more at:

source:  http://carm.org/parable-good-samaritan

then a third man comes by & sees him in the ditch, the Bible refers to him as  a good Samaritan

(33)but a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was and when he saw him he had compassion on him, (34)and went to him and bound up his wounds pouring in oil and wine and set him on his own beast and brought him to an Inn and took care of him

that next verse says he even paid for his room & told the Inn keeper if he need to stay a little longer, he’d come back and pay that too

Mercy: a little word with so much impact! every day  that we live is because of his mercy!