God Moved the Fence
(NIV) Eph 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.
Do you ever think about mercy? Mercy is not just a sad feeling for someone–true mercy will always drive us to action. Mercy causes us to do for others what they cannot do for themselves.
Why? Because just as God showed mercy to us when we were yet sinners, and incapable of freeing ourselves from the chains of sin, it is incumbent upon us to show mercy to others.
Receiving and giving mercy is part of our Christian heritage, and thus part of our spiritual responsibility. To receive mercy from God, but yet refuse to give mercy to others, marks us an insincere Christians.
In William Barclay’s study of the book of Ephesians, he tells this story:
In France some soldiers with their sergeant brought the body of a dead comrade to a French cemetery to have him buried. The priest told them gently that he was bound to ask if their comrade had been a baptized adherent of the Roman Catholic church. They said they did not know. The priest said he was very sorry but in that case he could not permit burial in his churchyard. So the soldiers took their comrade sadly and buried him just outside the fence.
The next day they came back to see that the grave was all right and to their astonishment could not find it. Search as they might they could find no trace of the freshly dug soil.
As they were about to leave in bewilderment the priest came up. He told them that his heart had been troubled because of his refusal to allow
their dead comrade to be buried in the churchyard; so, early in the morning, he had risen from his bed and with his own hands had moved the fence to include the body of the soldier who had died for France.
That’s what mercy can do. Rules and regulations put up a fence; but love and mercy moved it.
When we start moving fences with our own hands, then we will know we are becoming holy. When we cannot rest because of a wrong done to our fellow man, when we must rise from our beds to right that wrong, we will then know the holiness of God.
May we be quick to show mercy today and every day, and may love and mercy drive us to move fences.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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