As you meditate on God’s mercy, consider these
scriptures and see God renewing and changing your life
day by day:

• Matthew 9:36; Isaiah 40:11—Jesus has compassion
  and mercy as the Shepherd of the sheep. He is the
  Great Shepherd.
• Matthew 15:32—Jesus fed the multitude because of
  compassion and mercy.
• Mark 6:34—Jesus taught because of compassion.
• Luke 6:36—You are to be merciful as your Father
  is merciful.
• Luke 7:12-13—Jesus raised the dead because of
  compassion.
• 2 Corinthians 1:3—Our Father is the Father of all
  mercy and the God of all comfort.
• Ephesians 2:4—God is rich in mercy.
• Hebrews 4:16—Mercy is obtained at the throne of
  grace in prayer.

God’s mercy is extended toward you. Sin will not keep
you from getting healed. The only thing that will keep you
from receiving your healing is hanging onto the sin and
not repenting of it. James 5:14-15 says: “Is any sick among
you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them
pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the
Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins,
they shall be forgiven him.”

Pray in faith, but at the same time, be extremely honest
with yourself and with God. Stop kidding yourself. If you
are living in sin, get it out of your life right now. Make
a determination, “I am going to walk holy as my God is
holy.” The devil will warn you not to make that decision
because you might not be able to carry it out, but God
sent the Holy Ghost to help you do it in His power. If you
do miss it, be honest. Run straight to Him again and call
on His mercy that endures forever.

Remember, His mercy is new every morning.

Gloria Copeland

We are secure in knowing that we can never change
how much He loves us. Everything God does and all
His thoughts are based on His mercy. These are the
high thoughts and ways of Isaiah 55:8-9. His mercy is
“over all his works.” When we make mistakes, He looks
tenderly at us with compassion.

The cry of God’s heart is for us to run from all sin and
come to Him. He offers us a place of rest. He is continually
saying, “Don’t do that anymore. Come unto me, all ye
that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”
(Matthew 11:28). In His mercy, God will sometimes deal
with people for a lifetime, and still they pay very little
attention to Him. But what little attention they do give
Him, He blesses them in that area.

God is totally motivated by love. We cannot make Him
do anything. Trying to force Him to help us by crying
about needs He has already met in Christ is outside the
realm of His mercy and tenderness. He is waiting for
us to walk by faith. Romans 4:16 says: “Therefore
it is of faith, that it might be by grace.” He wants
to deal with us on the basis of grace and mercy. His
desire is to bless us even more than we desire to be blessed.

Even though your body may have been damaged
through sin, drugs, alcohol, wrong eating habits, etc., God
still compassionately desires to see your body well and
strong. His mercy will come in and cleanse you from all
unrighteousness. It will replace the sin in your life. Proverbs
16:6 says, “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged.” Or you
could say, “By mercy and the Word, iniquity is purged.”
When mercy flows in, the drug addiction or desire for
drink leaves, never to return.

The devil doesn’t want you to accept God’s mercy. He
would like for you to think that one sin calls for another.
The truth is that sin calls for the compassion of God, and
deliverance and redemption through Jesus Christ. God’s
mercy is not an excuse to sin. Rather, it is an assurance that
we do not have to be entrapped by it. Proverbs 28:13 says,
“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso
confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”

Gloria Copeland

Today, we are no longer restricted from the presence of
God’s glory. The New Covenant tells us very plainly that
the God who shined out of darkness has “shined in our
hearts, to give [us] the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6-7).
God put His glory in us because His mercy endures forever.
His mercy was greater than all the sin in the whole world.

When Jesus, God’s Son said, “Let this cup pass from Me”
(Matthew 26:39), the Father could have done so. God could
have said, “I will not bring all the sin of fallen humanity on
the One righteous person who has walked the earth since
the Garden of Eden.” However, His mercy and enduring
compassion was greater than what was about to happen
to His Son.

Mercy overcame.

Jesus followed the example of His Father. He was
always moved and led by compassion. He never acted
on His own motives and ideas. Compassion and mercy
dictated to His mind even when His body was suffering.
It welled up within Him and produced joy—the joy that
caused Him to endure the cross, despising the shame
(Hebrews 12:2).

Gloria Copeland

Since the Garden of Eden, God has had to deal with man at
arm’s length because of the glory surrounding His being. It would
overwhelm man if God appeared to him in the full manifestation
of His power. He once revealed to Moses that no man could look
into His face and live and then only allowed him a glimpse of
Himself from behind. He said, “I will put you in the shadow and
cleft of a rock. I will hold My hand over your face as I allow My
goodness to pass before you.” (See Exodus 33:19-23.)

Mercifully, God protected Moses from the intense
power that radiated from His face, knowing that even the
shadow of His presence would be too much for him.

However, this distance between man and Himself
was not in God’s original plan. He had created Adam and
clothed him in His own light and glory. Adam did not
know he was naked.

Before Adam sinned, all he knew was the fire of God’s
glory around his body. However, after the Fall of Man,
Adam lost that fire and could no longer fellowship with
God in His presence as he had before. If he had, the glory
of God which consumes all, sin would have consumed him
as well.

God wanted to restore our relationship with Him so
He could walk and talk with us like
He did with Adam. His desire is to
have fellowship with us. He sent Jesus
to the earth to pay the price for man’s
sin. Through Jesus, the glory of God
came wrapped in human flesh so that
once again man and his Creator could
have contact.

Jesus was born of a virgin, without sin. The Holy Spirit
hovered over Mary and there was conceived in her a holy.
thing (Luke 1:35). Jesus was born not of a natural man, but
God Himself caused life to come into Mary’s womb. God’s
life flowed into His human body.

The glory of God did not consume Jesus as it would
a sinful man. Instead, it became a flowing stream of
healing that radiated from the person of Jesus. A vivid
illustration of this is the account of Jesus on the Mount of
Transfiguration, when His clothes and face literally shone
with the glory of God.

Gloria Copeland

As born-again believers, it’s vital that we deal with
sin and the weakness of our flesh, according to the
Word of God. God has dealt with Kenneth about
sharing with the Body of Christ the importance of
removing sin from our lives. Why? Because if ministers
do not reprove the darkness, people will feel free to
continue in sin.

God is calling us to holiness—to live consecrated,
dedicated lives before Him. We must lay aside the
weight and sin that so easily besets us, and walk on
with Him (Hebrews 12:1). It’s time to walk in the
glory of God!

What are the sins that so easily beset us? The
world considers adultery and murder to be sins, but
gives little consideration to breaking the law of love.
Nevertheless, both kinds of sin will hinder you. First
John 3:4 says, “Everyone who commits (practices)
sin is guilty of lawlessness; for [that is what] sin is,
lawlessness (the breaking, violating of God’s law by
transgression or neglect—being unrestrained and
unregulated by His commands and His will)” (amp).

Sin is outright rebellion against God’s laws. Envy,
jealousy and strife are sins. They shut the door to
the blessings of God and open the door to the devil.
Living in sin could cause you to die young. Sin
destroys the sinner. For example, unforgiveness will
make you sick and adultery is a killer. We have been
in the ministry long enough to see what it does to
people. We have seen children die because of their
parents’ adultery. God didn’t do it. Sin did it. You
can’t make sin work for you. “The wages of sin is
death” (Romans 6:23).

If you are living in sin, the way to overcome your
flesh is to cause it to obey the spirit. If you are
committing adultery, most likely your heart is broken
over it. You don’t want to be driven by the lusts of
the flesh. Thank God, you can get out of it quickly!
You have an Advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ
the righteous. Satan has to accept that. He can pull
you into temptation if you allow him to, but he can’t
keep you there. When you decide to change—when
you confess the sin and turn from it and get things
right with God—you are instantly forgiven. (See 1
John 1:9.)