I spent my devotion on the first 3 chapters of Zephaniah this morning. I had a lot going through my head as I read it and when I was done, in meditating, a phrase came to my heart; “I will not live solely reliant on your mercy all of my christian life, I will walk in your love willingly and decisively“.

If you’re like me, the statement will throw you off a bit because I thought to myself “but I am daily in need of Gods love and mercy“, and then I got distracted to get ready for work. While on my commute, it became clearer and I said to myself with an outburst of joy that “I commit to walking in your love and not just living by your mercy“.

I realise how heavy a statement it is and I’m hoping I will bring it to you as the Holy Spirit shed light in my heart on this statement through the day.

I realised that the statement was a combination of what my spirit picked in reading the books between the books of Daniel and Haggai. I had seen a pattern all through these books that revealed the rebellion of God’s children, but much more, revealed the mercy and the love of the God that we serve. Jesus had not come and taken the sin of the world on Himself and so, as at then, the judgement system necessitated that a rebellious people suffered the consequence of their rebellion, but even before the consequence was seen, God would declare forgiveness and restoration to the people through the prophets and God will somehow make a way out for this people.

I wasn’t fond of the cycle I read about, rebellion > forgiveness > restoration > rebellion again > forgiveness > restoration > rebellion yet again > and on and on.

It made me see that perhaps these people had now known the nature of God, and even if they did not know, they had heard about it and so if they knew that God would pardon and forgive in the end, they would persist in their rebellion. This scared me a lot, because I began to think that because our hearts know the nature of God, have we committed to living solely on His mercy and never walking in His love?

Have we realised that we are never condemned by satan or sin because we stand righteous before God by the blood of Jesus and so, because of this, we live only by His mercy?

Don’t get me wrong, we will always live by Gods mercy in His love because we are not meriting or deserving of anything that He gives us, but, could it be that we’ve patterned our lives around God’s mercy because of His forgiving nature without ever committing to walking in love, void of sin. When our hearts are so full of God’s love, we hate sin, in its entirety, we might fall short sometimes but we dust ourselves quickly and stay steady in the love that keeps us from sin.

I have seen in those books that it is easier for most christians to ask for mercy than to walk in love, and we only take advantage of the former because we know the forgiving nature of God. I don’t know if God sees it as taking advantage of Him but since it rang in my heart this morning, I have committed myself to walking fully in His love and not only living by His mercy.

Let’s not make God’s nature a reason to continue in sin, while He will forgive us, He desires much more that we grow in His love and hate sin as He does.