S2 EP7: Blessed and Merciful

Welcome to the Thirst with Hunger podcast with Pastor Sandy Edwards, where we destroy every obstacle that hinders people from knowing God. Here, you'll be challenged, encouraged, and equipped to pursue his presence, walk in truth, and live with bold faith. Let's dive in. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Thirst with Hunger podcast. This series in season 2, we've been talking all about the Beatitudes and healing and how that all applies to soul health. And I would hope by now that you've picked up on what Jesus really meant When he sat down to teach the disciples about what it means to live their life in complete surrender and obedience to God, and what that looks like internally and externally, and how your internal perspectives affect your external worldviews. And so at the pace in which your soul is moving is the pace in which your life will move. They both work together to make one whole person in Christ. And so for the past few weeks, we've kind of been doing a lot of different things here and on the back end of Thirst with Hunger to get prepared for what we have coming in August. And that has come with some hard truths and some realizations and revelations and things that I've had to really sit with about My own mindset and how I view things. And, you know, all of that, just God really pruning and getting some other things in order that need to be done. And I keep returning to the same principle, even in my own life. At the pace in which my soul is navigating life is what will bear fruit. in the natural, in my external life. And so my internal and external are always meant to work together, not separate. And I have found that whenever we try to separate the two and try to move ahead of where we are mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually, there will always be frustration, there will always be anger, there will always be bitterness, and there will always be resentment to follow because We are not staying in step with the Spirit. And so God, because of the loving Father that he is, is not going to hand us things that we are not developmentally ready to receive. It's the same way with children, your own children. You don't give them things that you know are not age appropriate. You don't have conversations with them that you know they are not developmentally ready to have. And so God is the very same way with us. If he looks at the condition of our soul and sees that what we're so desperate for, what we're hungry for, the things that we keep petitioning him for— like the loving Father he is, he knows that if he hands you something before the appropriate time, you will not steward it well. And he would prefer us to steward it well. He would prefer that our character and the discipline that we have is able to sustain what we're asking for. He would prefer it, you know. So let's get into it. Matthew 5:7 says, blessed Are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. It does not say blessed are the merciful for it feels good to forgive, and blessed are the merciful for people will think well of you, and all of that stuff that we love, right? Jesus connects this mercy That we give to mercy received. He, he is giving us a value system. The Beatitudes are God's value system, right? Just like we grow up and we learn family values This is God's value system. So we know that we are blessed when we are poor in spirit and realize our need for God. We know that we are blessed when we thirst and hunger for righteousness. But we are also blessed when we give mercy, because that opens the door for us to receive mercy. Mercy, just like forgiveness, is is not a feeling. It is an action word, meaning we actually have to give it to receive it. It's not enough to know in theory that. I should extend mercy to my enemies, or I should extend mercy to people. It's not enough to know it. We actually have to do it. And mercy is also not ungodly compassion where you're people pleasing. That's not what mercy is either. In order for us to really understand what mercy is, we have to be in a position in our life at some point to understand our own need for mercy. So if I had to define mercy for everyone to understand it, I would say That mercy is God's covenant of loyalty. It's the same kind of loyalty that we see him display to the children of Israel. The children of Israel continue to give him reasons to stop showing mercy. So when Jesus says, blessed are the merciful, he's not describing people who feel bad for other people. This is not compassion. He is describing a person who acts towards their Offenders, people who have done them wrong, the way God has responded to them. So when we are engaging in the beatitude of mercy, we are looking at our offenders or our enemies or the person who has done us wrong, the person who mistreated us, the person who abused us And we're looking at them and saying, you know what, instead of holding a grudge, instead of growing deeper into bitterness and resentment, I'm going to remember that at one point in my life, and maybe even yesterday or 5 minutes ago, I needed God's mercy. I'm not going to put myself in a position to not receive God's mercy because I won't give it. I'm not going to put myself in a position to not receive God's mercy because I won't give it. And you know where else we see in scripture that Jesus says this very same thing about it is that if you don't forgive, God will not forgive you. So we cannot give forgiveness without extending mercy. Mercy and forgiveness should work together, and it comes from you and I understanding that we We're all, all in within ourselves, were once an enemy to God. We once offended God. Maybe even yesterday we offended God with something that we did, with something that we said, with something that we, we looked at that we shouldn't have looked at. Maybe we offended God yesterday, 5 minutes ago. Whatever the case, I cannot forgive if I don't extend mercy. They work together. And it comes from the revelation that I was once an enemy to God. And as much as this person may have offended me, or this group of people may have done this to me, or I was in the church and I got hurt and these people abused me and all this stuff, I'm not Going to sit here and tell you that it's the easiest thing to do and that it's a walk in the park, because it's not. But what I must do as a child of God is mature to the point of having faith to forgive, even if I don't feel like the person deserves mercy and forgiveness. I have to have the faith to do it. And faith looks like every single time I remember what happened, every single time I remember what was said, I also remember that I was once an enemy to God. So I don't hold people captive to what they have done. It doesn't mean that what the person did was right. It doesn't mean What I did was right. But what it means is that every single person who is an image bearer of God is deserving of forgiveness and mercy. And because of what they did doesn't mean that I get to take that away from them and hold them captive in my heart. So the way this works with God is if you want to be forgiven, you gotta forgive. And if you want mercy, you have to extend the mercy. And these are God's blessings. I am blessed when I forgive. I am blessed when I extend mercy. I don't ever— because I love the Lord. The word of God says that if you love him, You will keep his commandments. And these are God's commands. These are God's instructions for how to live on this earth, in your engagements in life, in your confrontations in life, in your experiences in life. The Beatitudes are God's commands and instructions. This means that if I want to receive God's mercy, I have To give the mercy. Again, mercy is not ungodly compassion. Mercy is not people pleasing. Mercy is not people pleasing. And the truth is, it's, it's easier for us to extend mercy and to forgive others when they apologize, right? We know how to be kind to people who are kind to us. And for those of us who say, well, you don't understand what so-and-so did to me, And you don't know what they said to me. We understand. I 100% understand how people can hurt you to no end. I have had to forgive people for the most— I mean, just hurtful, despicable things ever in this life. So you're not hearing somebody teach you something from a experience that they haven't lived. I've been there. I have had to forgive people who've abused me. I've had to forgive people who have betrayed me to no end. I have been there multiple times in life. And so when I hear people say things like, you just don't understand— no, I think it's that your flesh doesn't want to submit to God's authority In this area about mercy and forgiveness. And I know that that is a hard word for some of us to hear, but it's the truth, is that sometimes it's not that we can't forgive because we have been completely empowered by the Holy Spirit, who is our Comforter, who is our Helper to walk through forgiveness. And extending mercy every single waking, breathing moment of our life. We have been completely empowered by the Holy Spirit to do it. We have, but we make excuses instead of submitting to the lordship of Christ. It's written on the page that if you do not forgive others, God himself will not forgive you. It's written on the page. How do we argue with that? And it means that if I am struggling to extend mercy, if I am struggling to forgive another person, I need to ask God for the grace and the faith to forgive the person every single time I remember what they did. So when I remember what they did, I also need to remember that I was once an enemy to God. And that softens that hardened heart to receive that mercy that we so desperately need. The word of God is a two-edged sword. So as you give mercy, you're receiving mercy. As you forgive, you're receiving forgiveness. So if you don't forgive, God doesn't forgive you. If you forgive, God forgives you. God made it very simple for us. Sometimes, sometimes, not all the time, we want to cling so hard to what the person did, and we begin to fall more in love with our offense than we do freedom in Christ. And I would say to you, what do you love more? Do you love the offense that was done to you more than you do Jesus Christ? Because at some point, one has to surrender to Christ. You actually have to practice surrendering to the Lord. You actually have to practice giving what you hold so dearly and want to hold so dearly and cling to so dearly. To the Lord Jesus Christ, it has to at some point be surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ. It has to be surrendered. It has to be surrendered. Matthew 5:7 exposes this, this part of us that has quietly reserved mercy for people we feel like deserve it. We call it being fair. We call it being fair. And sometimes worldly principles make its way into our lives like this: I forgive, but I don't forget. But over and over, over again, we see in the Old Testament God making this echoing message go even further to say, "Hmm, forget the former things. Forget." The former things. So as the world is telling you, forgive and don't forget— I forgive but I don't forget— you need to forget it. It needs to be like it never happened. Otherwise, you continue to stay under the bondage of the offense that you won't forgive. It needs to become like it doesn't even exist anymore. Otherwise, you continue to wear the residue like clothes. Literally, you begin to wear the residue. It's on your voice. It's in everything that you do because you will not forgive others. You will not extend mercy to others. When you don't forgive, you step into this place of pride and you begin to say, well, I have a right not to forgive you for what you did. You have done things that are sinful to God, things that you probably don't even remember, and you needed God's mercy. You needed his forgiveness. But you won't extend that same forgiveness to others. You won't extend that same mercy to others. So what is— I forgive, but I don't forget. I forgive, but I don't forget. I want us to listen to these things that we say that do not align with the word of God. Nowhere in this scripture Nowhere in the scriptures will you ever see God telling you to and remember all the things that a person did to you, to have rehearsal over and over and over again of what someone did to you. Confession is one thing. To confess that this happened, to expose that this happened, to go and find people that you can trust to expose that a situation happened is not the same thing as you constantly rehearse. Cursing and holding grudges and refusing to extend mercy. You need to confess. You need to say that this happened. If it was abuse, then you need to do something about it. You need to go and get help. You need to ask someone to help you. You need to find a, a resource or something to help you get out of those circumstances. Yes. But after you do all of that, be as committed to Christ to get your heart in a position to really receive the fullness of Christ in your life. Which is to say that, yes, I was abused. Yes, I was betrayed. Yes, I was hurt. Yes, this happened to me. But these circumstances do not get to dictate how I live my life and what I do from this point. I will work every day as unto the Lord to get this offense out of my heart. I will work every day as unto the Lord and have faith to forgive even if I don't feel like it in the moment. Because I don't want anything to hold me back or hinder me from moving into the things that God wants to bring into my life. I don't want it. And life will continue even if you don't forgive. It will. And life will continue even if you don't extend mercy. It will. Because life is a universal law. It's going to continue to go on and on and on. and repeat itself and go on and on and on. But what happens when you don't stop the pattern of you not being committed to Christ to forgive is that that unforgiveness gets passed down into your children, and then your children pass that unforgiveness down into their children. That's how these things continue to spread. Over generations of families, offenses that were never addressed, and the enemy loves to feast on offense. This is why it's so dangerous that when you are offended, you run to social media and tell everybody all of your business of what happened to get people on your side. And then before you know it, it has turned into a whole mess that it didn't even have to be because you didn't. Practice the discipline of sitting with the Lord to getting that offense out of your heart. For me, when I'm offended or somebody does something, I will tell maybe one person, one or two close people who are in my life. But my first resort is not to run to any social media platform and tell what someone did. My first resort is to commit myself to prayer. I have learned to practice the discipline of running. To the Lord. Of running to the Lord. And some of us don't love God enough to trust that he alone can pull us out. We don't. And it shows up in our behavior. It shows up in the way that we talk. It shows up in the way that we respond to situations. We don't love Christ enough to run to him And we don't trust that he alone can pull us out. And it shows in the fruit of our life, in how we speak, in how we speak about ourselves, and how we think about other people. It shows up. And we can make all of the excuses all day and just be like, well, I, I, I want to forgive, but this pain is too much. But your pain, it may be deep, it is deep, and it does hurt, but it's not more powerful than Christ. What they did to you, it sucks. I don't know what else y'all want for people to tell you, but it does Suck. It hurts. It's deep. The betrayal is not an easy walk in the park. But because of the same spirit that lives within you, that raised Jesus from the dead, is within you, you have the grace and the faith to forgive. God does not Enjoy the condition of your heart being filled with burdens and heaviness. He doesn't. And he is a wonderful counselor. We recite that verse from Isaiah all of the time, wonderful counselor, and we sing it in songs and all the stuff, and we talk about it. But do we know Christ as the wonderful counselor, or do we know him As somebody who conveniently just comes when, when it's about us receiving all the things that we want. So if your level of extending mercy is conditional on another person's behavior, it's, it's not mercy. Any measure of love that you decide to extend in this life that has not been embedded with Jesus Christ and the principles of the Bible, the full counsel of God, is not love. So the same way meekness is not silence, mercy Is not surrender. Mercy does not mean you lay down and let someone keep doing what they're doing with no consequences. It doesn't mean pretending sin isn't sin, or leaving someone in a relationship or a position of trust they forfeited by how they treated you. So mercy and forgiveness doesn't mean that consequences Dissolve. Mercy and forgiveness and consequence can all coexist, and often they do. Underneath This reluctance to show mercy is, is fear. You say to yourself, if I don't hold this person accountable, no one will. If I let this go, it means that what they did, they gonna get away with it. And if I protect myself, then I'm protecting my reputation about the whole matter. And it's a lie. It's all a lie. It is self-deception to tell yourself that when something happens, the first thing you need to do is protect your reputation. No, the first thing you need to do is forgive and extend mercy. And this requires obedience to God's word, even if you have to cry while doing it. You have to physically see it in your mind, you laying that situation down at the feet of Christ every day if you got to, until it lifts. But you know what we want? We want to forgive and the feelings and the offenses and all that stuff. We, we want to be able to say, I forgive you, and it all goes away instantly. It doesn't work like that. You have to practice this over and over and over and over again. I'm going to tell you something that that happened in my own life. I'm going to give you a scenario, a real life lived experience, right? In 2025, I received a string of emails from someone cursing me out across paragraphs. Not a couple sentences, paragraphs about my weight, my marriage, my children, calling me a hypocrite, calling me dumb, saying people on social media hadn't caught on yet to me basically not being the person that I say that I am. But anybody who's encountered me offline knows that I am the same person online. I don't have no reason to be no hypocrite, and I don't want to get in trouble with God, so I ain't got time, right? But the email address wasn't one that I recognized, but by way of the Holy Spirit, I knew exactly who it was. And the language that this person was using mirrored an open rebuke I had given this person directly the year before over a comment that they made generalizing women and makeup. And as I read the first email, the Holy Spirit literally told me their name, and I didn't have any room to assume. I had actual clarity from the Holy Spirit. I told my husband, we laughed about a few things, and we went to sleep. A few hours later, right, I woke up and I was able to discern that this same person was praying against me. So I got up, I walked through my house and prayed in the spirit until this heaviness lifted. And then the next morning, like in my regular prayer time, I prayed for them. And I mean, I really prayed, prayed for them. Not no fake phony prayer. I prayed for them. That God would heal them, that God would deliver them, bless them. And I told God that it was not personal for me, that only he knew, right, everything I had done out of the kindness of my heart for this person, both as a leader and as God's daughter. And let me tell you, that person has left me alone. And I, I prayed for that too, because we don't like to be honest. If we want somebody to leave us alone, I am not afraid to tell God, okay God, this person has become my enemy. Please let them leave me alone. Please. I'm that honest with God. I don't put on airs and come to God like, oh, I just want, you know, me and this person who is enemies to be friends. I am not fake. I will tell the Lord, I want them to leave me alone. So if it's in your will for them to leave me alone, please let them leave me alone because I don't want it. But we don't like to be honest with God like that because we try to be over-the-top spiritual about everything, and we try to make things deeper than what they really are. I'm not coming to God putting on airs because he already know what's in my heart anyway. And I will tell him, I don't want a relationship with this person. I've seen enough rotten fruit, and, and I would just prefer, God, not to, not to have a relationship with this person. And I don't say that about everyone who has become my enemy, but in specific situations, I am honest and I air out those things, which is my point. I communicate those things to the Lord because I trust him with it. And at the end of the day, if he wants me to have a relationship with this person again, then I will, because I will submit to God in that area, even if it means I have to cringe at first, right? But I am honest with the Lord, and I will tell him I don't want a relationship with this person, so please let them leave me alone, right? And so I learned Another level of what it means to love and pray for an enemy. I learned another level of that. Matthew 5, verse 43 through 45 and verse 48. It says, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you," Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. And we usually, you know, quote that last verse and say, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, without reading the few scriptures that come before it. And this is why this verse gets taken out of context, because what God means by you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect is if you go all the way back up to where he said, you have heard it said That you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. This is God's definition of perfection: to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in Heaven. That's God's definition of perfection. So this is the command that is underneath Matthew 5:7. God's mercy doesn't wait for the evil to become good before the sun rises on them. And his mercy didn't wait for you to clean your life up first either. That's right. As I have said before, God's mercy should terrify us. It should. The way God extends mercy, it should terrify us and cause us to be filled with holy fear And reverence. The same mercy that applies to you also applies to your enemies. So extending mercy is not about being nice. Niceness is not a fruit of the Spirit. I don't even teach my own kids to be nice. I teach them to be kind. And there is a difference. And so yes, mercy is hard to extend when the person you're extending it to never takes accountability. And some of you, you're not dealing with people who hurt you once. You're dealing with people who hurt you over and over and over again. Or you're dealing with people who took the side of your offender and became friends with them and left you in the wind. And I've lived that too. For years, I quietly waited for somebody to finally ask me my side of the story. And I was so sure of myself that once they asked me my side of the story, I would feel free. And that moment never came for me, and I had to surrender my desire for that moment to come to the Lord. Colossians 3:13 applies to every scenario: bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. There's no clause in that scripture, Colossians 3:13, for once people understand, then you forgive them, or once they take your side, then you forgive them and extend mercy. God's word doesn't say that we extend the mercy once people apologize, because for some of you An apology isn't coming because people have free will and they don't have to take accountability if they don't want to. They don't. They still going to have to answer to God for that, but they don't have to take accountability if they don't want to. We can't force people to. Now, when it comes to crimes and things like that, yes. We can get the law involved. But as far as basic offenses and things that you deal with in your life with people betraying you and all of that, some people absolutely 100% in your relationships with them, and then even after the relationships end, won't take accountability. Just make sure that you take Accountability. If you played a part in what happened, then you repent, and then you forgive, and you extend mercy. It's not contingent upon someone else's behavior and them taking accountability in order for you to forgive. So essentially, God made sure that you and I would never be able to have an excuse for why we didn't follow his word, because he made it very simple. He said, you know what, I'mma simplify this and make it so you can do it on your own without the other person. And that's a heavy revelation to sit with, right? Because sometimes mercy toward someone will never validate your pain. So if I had to give you some directions today for what to do about this, I would say name— name the person to God or to a righteous person that you know in your life. Name the person Who is the person that you decided doesn't get the mercy you should give because of what they did? God already knows the person and the scenario, but just like God requires us to obey his commandments, he also requires us to do our part in faith In partnership with him. Faith without works is dead doesn't just apply to entrepreneurship. It also applies to your everyday life and basic biblical principles like mercy and forgiveness and loving your neighbor. And then you need to pray for that person. You need to pray for that person as if they were you, because if you remove the scenario from the equation, that person is deserving of mercy just as much as you are from God. You at one point were in rebellion against God. You at one point refused the mercy and love of God, and you weren't listening to God, and you were out here doing whatever you wanted to do. And so you need to see that person as the same person you once were. And as I have said, it became easier for me to forgive When I also remembered that I was once an enemy to God too. And I won't just— no surface-level enemy. I was God's enemy, okay? I was God's enemy. And so when I remember what someone did to me, I also remembered that I was once God's enemy too. And so I'm gonna forgive because my heart deserves to be free. My body deserves to be free. My mind deserves to be free. Jesus paid for me to be free, so I do deserve to be free. I do deserve to live with my heart wide open without any heaviness, but I can't do that if I don't forgive and extend mercy. So bring your reservations to God directly. Tell him what you're afraid that the mercy will mean if you extend it. How will we process things in spirit and in truth if we're not being honest with the Lord? God never asked you to come to him with a perfect answer. He's not asking for you to have a theoretical answer about the offense or the suffering or any of that. He never asked us for that. It's us who have been indoctrinated by this worldly church system that has taught us principles about relationship with God that just simply isn't biblical. How will you learn surrender if you're not being honest? How will you learn forgiveness if you don't tell God and air out your offenses to God about why it's so hard for you to forgive? How will you experience the Wonderful Counselor if you don't allow yourself to be counseled through the Word of God and in prayer? How? How? Blessed are the merciful, not the people who never get hurt. But it's the people who got hurt, they know exactly what was done to them, and chose mercy anyway, because that's what was done for them first. The same way we love because he first loved us is the same way we extend mercy. Because he first extended mercy to us. God bless you. Thank you for listening to the Thirst with Hunger podcast. We truly appreciate you joining us on this journey. Your support makes it all possible. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our channel, hit the like button, and leave a comment below with your thoughts.