His Mercy Is Not Our Mercy

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.” (Isa 55:8 AV)

 

Here is another verse we tend to use on its own.  We use it to support God’s omniscience and wisdom of His counsels.  We assert the ways of God are above our understanding and we can never come to a full understanding of what and how God does what He does.  We also teach our ways or values that differ from God’s ways and values.  These are all proper and right uses of this verse.  However, the beauty of this verse is where it appears.  In this chapter, the LORD is promising to restore wayward Israel, forgive their sins, and give them a new heart to follow Him.  This verse is the explanation of God’s unsearchable mercy.  What really sticks out is our ways are not His ways. In other words, we cannot understand the limitless mercy of a benevolent God and would fully expect God to consume us in His wrath.  Because that is what we would do if we were in His shoes.

There is a parable told by our LORD regarding forgiveness.  As the parable goes, there is a debtor of a king who was called on his debt.  The king reckoned with all his servants and found this one man who owed him a great sum.  The king commanded all this servant possessed, including his wife and children, be sold and the debt paid.  When the servant fell upon his knees and begged for mercy, the king forgave all the debt.  It was as if the debt had never existed.  Needless to say, this servant was overjoyed.  In the course of his daily routine, he came upon a lesser servant than he who owed a smaller debt to the forgiven servant.  This forgiven servant demanded payment of which the lesser had nothing for which to pay.  The forgiven servant promptly imprisoned the lesser until the whole debt was paid.  The king heard of it and quickly threw that ungrateful servant into debtor’s prison for the rest of his life.  The point of the parable is forgiveness.  As we have been forgiven by God, we need to forgive others.  However, for the sake of our verse above, what we can notice is our ways are not His ways.  Where God would forgive, we would not.

The verse above is not one of rebuke as meant by the parable of Matthew chapter eighteen.  The point of the verse above is the amazing grace of God is not understood by a creation that shows little of it itself.  When the limitless mercy of God is expressed to a guilty soul, he should feel confused.  He should be a bit bewildered.  He should be taken aback that God would forgive him of all transgressions when it is not in the nature of the soul to do so for another.  This mercy should be a miracle to the eyes of the one receiving it.  Gratitude and amazement should be the response.  Humility should be the fruit of a heart receiving grace when grace is not deserved nor earned.  Praise the LORD His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.  None of us would survive that!