His mercy comes first

Today in the One Year Bible, we read an interesting passage. It's from Titus 3:1-15, and the reason it's interesting is because it very directly answers a question that arose on FB today.

A good friend of mine posted a quote by a very good Cardinal. I really admire Cardinal Sarah and find wisdom in much of what he says. But I disagreed with his quote that was posted on FB, at least as it was, devoid of context. It said, "Don't deceive people with the word 'mercy'. God forgives sins only if we repent of them."

Now, I get what the Bishop is trying to say. He's addressing those who think that "Everything will be fine... I can do whatever I want because God is merciful and will forgive me." He's saying that in order for us to be holy, and go to heaven (since only saints go to heaven), we need to repent of our sins so that God will forgive us. And maybe in the context of the quote, he explains it better.

But the quote by itself does something that our reading from Titus counters. The reading from Titus says, "When God our savior revealed His kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things that we had done, but because of His mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new brith and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our savior. Because of His grace, He declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life." See how all of this is God-centered? It's Him pursuing us. It's God chasing after us and loving us, often in spite of ourselves.

Do we need to repent? Of course we do. We sin all the time. But I think it's better to understand sin as "missing the mark", or making an error, than it is to think of it as doing something horribly evil that we have to get rid of before Jesus will love us again. If we keep sinning, we keep going in the wrong direction. We never grow in our faith. We don't progress toward being the saints that we will be in heaven. So we have to repent to get there.

But without His mercy, which came FIRST, we wouldn't be ABLE to repent. We would be trapped in our sins, and in the resulting death, forever. His mercy came first. He came to US, offering us forgiveness and love and redemption. Of course we have to repent in order to receive those things, but He came to US.... and continues to come to us... offering His love and forgiveness throughout our lives.

We can't deceive people by saying "mercy." Mercy is what it's all about.

God, thank You for Your mercy and love, without which we could never repent and find You.