Perfecting God’s Mercy and Grace
(week 30/07)
Olubi Johnson
Perfecting mercy and grace means allowing the mercy and grace of God to be released by God in their full measure in and through us.
The grace of God is His favour that causes Him to release a measure of His life into our human spirits by the cleansing of the blood of Jesus and on the legal basis of Christ’s sufferings on our behalf.
1 Peter 3:7(NKJV): 7 Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.
Psalms 30:5(NKJV): 5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life;
As we grow in grace, the measure of life given to us by God’s grace increases.
God’s purpose is for us, like Jesus, to be full of grace: to have the fullness of God’s grace to be ministered to us.
John 1:14(NKJV): 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
The mercy of God is God’s compassion: His being touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4.15), that causes Him to release a measure of His life, through the air upon our souls, bodies and circumstances to preserve us from destruction (Lamentation 3.22) and to cause us to be faithful (1 Corintians 7.25) in difficult situations and times of weakness.
Jude 21(NKJV): 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
To perfect the mercy of God in our lives is to allow the full measure of God’s life to flow to us by His mercy, causing us not to be consumed and to be faithful to endure unto the end (Matthew 24.13): the experience of the perfection and fullness of Christ in this lifetime (1 John. 4.17).
How then do we perfect the mercy and grace of God in our lives?
We perfect the mercy and grace of God in our lives by watching and praying always.
Watching: acknowledging, in our thoughts, the Lord with thanksgiving for mercy unto eternal life enabling us to be faithful to do all things with love, always: at least once every hour (Matthew 24.42) with a heart attitude of honesty (Genesis 20.6, 2 Chronicles 16.9), will cause the mercy of God to be perfected: ministered in full measure to us throughout the course of each day.
Praying always: at least once every six hours (Deuteronomy. 6.7, Joshua 1.8, Mark 13.35) with a heart attitude of humility (1 Peter 5.5): confessing our sins to clean with the blood, using the name of Jesus to receive the life of God and praying in tongues, will cause the grace of God to be perfected or ministered in full measure in and through us during course of each day.
So you perfect grace by praying always and perfect mercy by watching always.
It will not be possible to watch and pray always if your mind and the air around you has not been occupied by the power of the Holy Spirit through spiritual warfare in praying with all types of prayer either by you or through the covering of a leadership that is so doing:
2 Corintians 10:3-5(NKJV): 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
It is praying always that causes our minds and the air to be occupied by the life of God, which in turn will now cause us to watch always:
Isaiah 26:3(NKJV) : 3 You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.
Romans 8:5-6(NKJV): 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
When the measure of the life of God in your mind and soul reduces, you become more carnally minded, when it increases you become more spiritually minded.
Luke 11:34-36(NASU): 34 “The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 “Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. 36 “If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it will be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays.”
Your eye here, in the scripture quoted above, represents your mind.
So we are to be diligent in prayer to constantly occupy our minds and the air around us with the life of God so that your ‘eye’ is always clear being enlightened (Ephesians 1.18) with the light of life (John. 8.12 cp Ephesians 4.18). This is what makes you spiritually minded, causing you to watch always: acknowledging the Lord with thanksgiving in your thinking for mercy unto eternal life (Jude 1.21) at least once every hour (Matthew 24.42).
Any time you are unable to pray, because of weakness or difficult circumstances to occupy the air, watch by trusting in God’s sovereign mercy, which will then give you strength to pray to occupy your mind and the air with the life of God, that will now cause you again to begin to watch and pray regularly by faith in God’s ordinary mercy and grace: this is mercy and grace you get through your prayers and this what you live (Habakkuk 2.4) by daily.
God’s sovereign mercy is what you get when you have not prayed.