Self-Care – Page 4 – Ask Jerry Mercer

Loving Kindness and Tender Mercies

These two descriptors are found throughout the Bible, but to truly understand these loving characteristics we must look deeply into the promises and concepts of God Himself.

From the beginning of time, God has truly had us on His mind, He was, is, and will always be a loving Creator!

To start an understanding relationship with our Creator, we need to first establish a couple of beliefs.

First, we must believe Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.” AMPC.

If we get this settled first we can then be guided and directed through the rest of the Bible, with Genesis 1:1 as our grounding scripture of premise. Amen!

To understand the contents of this blog, you will need to establish in your heart the second belief found in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart”. This is God speaking to Jeremiah, or Jerry, or Pam, or Bill, or Krysti. We must include ourselves in scriptures that explain God’s actions, and reactions, for all people and for all times.

God does not change, and I am very grateful for that, you?

Let’s look at loving kindness first; loving kindness is God’s grace in Christ Jesus, it is His mercy towards us when He renews us unto Himself. It is His wondrous deeds that He performs among us, it is His goodness to us, and it is better than life as written in Psalm 63:3, “Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.” Amen!

As God considers us, He looks at us through His lovingkindness, which is affection in its purest form. In Matthew 5:8, the Bible says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” Amen!

So, by accepting God with a pure heart, and by believing that He is the Creator of all things (this includes us), and by becoming a doer of His Word we will see God! Amazing!

Now, as we look at His tender mercies I need you to open up your spiritual eyes, and put into practice the beliefs we just covered. We are going somewhere.

Here comes the huge statement……. “Tender Mercies is how God sees us when we were still in our mother’s womb! Before any sin, before we entered this curse-filled world before we even had a blemish.

God sees us back before we rebelled, before we had our own opinion, before any unbelief, and before there was a chasm between us.

God’s “tender mercies” towards us, gives us the ability to be in a place with God where and when He first knew us as His children.

Romans 8:14 says, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (that would mean male sons and female). We truly were spirits before we were adorned with this flesh, pure spirits without any division between us and our Creator, God!

You see God’s “tender mercies” come from the Hebrew word, “Racham”.

There are many biblical and theological definitions of racham, these include; blessing, protection, guidance, support, spiritual gifts, the gift of faith, peace, persistence, and cheerfulness to name a few. These are all wonderful and amazing qualities of God. Amen!

But the Semitic language, the root definition of the word racham is, “Womb”. As in the love of a mother for her unborn child, a love that can never be challenged! Pause and think about this for a minute, based on what we have covered, God loves us this way! Astounding!

David in Psalm 25:6, “Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses; for they have been ever of old”, was asking God to remember the love He had for him before he had ever sinned before he had ever committed an ungodly act.

We have no English word or definition for this kind of love!

The love our Creator has for us is unexplainable. You want to talk about undeserved, God loved us before we were, and He loved us enough as sinners to send His only Son to bring us back to the love we enjoyed in the womb. Wow!

The “tender mercies” or “racham” that we enjoy now was pre-flesh and amazingly spiritual.

We have a job to do while we are here on this earth and that is to love God and one another’s so much that we return to that pre-birth condition, that leaping in the womb condition that John enjoyed before he was birthed by his mother Elizabeth, read Luke 1:41-44.

That condition causes us to hear accurately from Jesus so that we can always be listening to and for Him, and by spiritually listening we will also set up a watchtower in our hearts that longs to see our risen King. Amen!

The symbolization of watchtower is to be watchful for signs of prophecy and of Christ’s return. When He comes back for us the Bible says in 1 John 3:2, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is”.

Let’s start skipping like a calf, marveling at the Word of God. As much as we know to do, let us endeavor to be like Jesus.

Friend, do you know Him, He knows and loves you.

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you liked this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content; Genesis 1:1-31, Genesis 2:1-4, Jeremiah 1: 4-5, Psalm 63: 1-8, Psalm 25:1-14, Luke 1: 41-44, 1 John 3: 1-3, and Isaiah 46 : 3-4, ” Listen to me, descendants of Jacob, all you who remain in Israel. I have cared for you since you were born. I will be your God throughout your lifetime- until your hair is white with age. I made you. I will carry you along and save you”.

To Those Who Mourn

It seems that no matter where you sit on the fence of the 2020 pandemic, we are all touched in some way.

An actual fence marks a boundary that has been placed to either keep something in or, to keep something out.

As we put up our emotional boundaries, we keep at bay our ability to mourn with those who are mourning over a significant loss at the hands of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The illusion about what the capabilities of the pandemic are, seem to strike different cords depending on your faith, race, financial abilities, and age group.

The poverty and death being caused by the pandemic seem to be overshadowed by everyone’s inherent desire to self-persevere.

Unless people are touched first hand, the pandemic either becomes political, or non-existent to a good portion of the population.

This pattern seems to be holding the same for “The Church”, and we need to bridge this gap as soon as possible.

The Apostle Paul tells us to mourn with those who mourn, right after he told us to rejoice with those who rejoice.

Both rejoicing and mourning are part of what we are going to experience in a fallen world.

As people confessing to be Christians, we should be leaders in these areas, the areas of consoling people as well as shouting with them. Amen!

Christ-ians are ambassadors of “The Christ”. As ambassadors, we have a duty to present the Kingdom of God to one another and those around us.

We have a duty to become intentional in prayer, calling prayer meetings, prayer vigils, and one on one prayer time, whatever is necessary to turn the spiritual tide.

We should stop fighting to keep the church open and start fighting for people, their lives, and livelihoods. Help the people with their finances, their hurts, and their losses. Mourning lasts way past the burial process and people need our support for the long haul.

We know that God hears the cries of His people, just look in the Psalms, where David cried out to God. God heard, and God heeded David’s prayers. Amen!

We need to draw a parallel to the Word of God to help a struggling people, whether financially or emotionally. That drawn line traces a path to hope and healing, to strength and salvation.

After all, the greatest need in the world today is salvation! Amen!

We as Christians should turn our thoughts and the thoughts of those around us toward an eternal reality.

If we constantly remember others and look to assist in their lives, and their traumatic experiences, we will see a healing that starts spreading much quicker than a vaccine.

Joy will truly come in the morning as the scripture says, “weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning”. Psalm 30:5 NLT.

Let’s start acting like it’s morning! Amen! Let’s spread some joy!

Let’s reach out to people that are hurting, and first get them sustained whether it be financially or emotionally, then help them to be restored to a spiritual connection.

A connection that will cause them to have a future and a hope, and we by helping others will also help ourselves, increasing the totality of the spiritual connection.

God so loved the world that He gave us Jesus. We should so love those around us and do the same. Amen!

Come out of isolation and let the light of the Gospel be seen anew.

Start now so that we enter 2021 full of true Christianity which is; genuine love, love for one another, rejoicing in hope, being patient, contributing to the needs of others, blessing those who may not be so lovely, have joy with the joyful, weep with those who weep, live in harmony with one another, don’t be haughty, be honorable in the sight of all, and live in peace. Romans 12:9-21 paraphrased.

I will close with a prayer for all of us. “May the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, guard our hearts and our minds through Christ Jesus. Amen! Philippians 4:7

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you liked this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content: Colossians 4:6, Galatians 6:2, Romans 12:15-16, Ephesians 1:13-14, John 3:16, and Luke 1:78-80, “Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace”. NLT translation.

Crisp Sinus Rhythm

This week’s blog is going to be a little different, a more personal, recent experience. It’s a real story in real-time that happened the day before Thanksgiving.

One thing I want to point out first and foremost is “God did it”, I told Him that I would tell everyone.

For the past few years, I have been periodically troubled with Arterial Fibrillation or AFIB. It is where your heart rate sometimes beats too fast, sometimes too slow, and sometimes just out of rhythm or skipping beats. It has been more troubling the last couple of months as it has been happening almost daily and disrupting my quality of life.

At times causes shortness of breath, fatigue, and most notably can cause blood clots that could possibly lead to a stroke.

I had a cardiologist that treated me a few years ago, and I was telling him of my new symptoms and how they were much more frequent. He would run an EKG at the office; my heart would be fine at this point, so he would send me on my way, no real response or care for the AFIB.

I also tried my regular doctor to no avail, both would tell me to stop drinking coffee, stop smoking, and stop drinking alcohol, all of which I had done some 20 plus years ago when I started serving God and trusting Him with my life.

A few weeks ago my wife started looking and found a new cardiologist. He ran an EKG and noted that I was in AFIB at that moment and that by listening to my story it sounded like the AFIB had become persistent.

He quickly wanted to get my heart back into normal sinus rhythm, so he scheduled a TEE test along with Cardioversion. The first test is a sonogram of your heart from the inside, a tube is run down your esophagus, and pictures of your heart are taken from the inside. Sounds intrusive, right? This test is to make sure that there are no blood clots in the heart before they do the Cardioversion, which is to shock your heart back into normal sinus rhythm. Both procedures require sedation and a team of nurses with the doctor to man all the necessary equipment to complete both procedures.

Upon my arrival at the hospital, I had a COVID-19 test (negative) and then proceeded to be prepped for my two procedures.

An I.V. was placed in my forearm for fluids and sedation, machines were rolled into the room for various functions, and three nurses and the doctor arrived. Meanwhile, the doctor was looking for the anesthesiologist who finally came in the room.

With all the machines hooked up and humming, the anesthesiologist gets ready to administer the sedation, everyone takes their position (there wasn’t much room for me) and we were ready to roll.

Then all of the sudden I hear the doctor say “Wait a second – the one monitor looks like he has converted to normal sinus rhythm”! “The other one still looks like AFIB but that one looks like normal sinus rhythm”.

The nurses quickly return me to my back and hook up a twelve lead EKG that monitors your heart extra close. I will never forget the words of my doctor when the reading came on the screen, “Crisp Sinus Rhythm”.

God showed up at the last second to restore my heart, even the doctor said, “I have never seen anyone convert to normal sinus rhythm at this point”. Usually, more stress causes more AFIB, not a conversion to normal sinus rhythm.

So now everyone is scurrying to unhook me from all the machines, a couple of the nurses asked the doctor if he wanted them to leave the machines hooked up in case I reverted. The doctor said, “No he has converted and all is good”!

I will pause here and tell you what I was thinking at this moment and it was, “you can’t make this stuff up”, “you can’t make this stuff up”! As I was watching and listening to everything that was unfolding, I started thanking God for interceding on my behalf. Thanking Him for answering mine, my wife’s, and my family’s prayers.

Then the doctor looked at me and said “you don’t have to have either test, just some medication to keep your heart in normal sinus rhythm”. I exclaimed “Hallelujah”!

The doctor and the team of nurses left the room with the instructions to run another twelve lead EKG in about an hour and if everything was ok, release me.

During that hour was when the fight of faith began.

All alone, in a dark room, still hooked up to the heart monitor, hearing nothing but the beep, beep, beep, with every heartbeat.

The beeps would change occasionally and when I looked at the monitor it seemed that my heart was skipping a beat at times. Every time that would happen I would say, “God gave me this (my normal sinus rhythm) and I’m keepin’ it”! This was my statement of faith for the next sixty minutes.

After about fifteen minutes a nurse came in the room, and after checking the monitor she said, “Beautiful sinus rhythm”, relief came over me and I rested momentarily.

It wasn’t long after she left that the monitor started in… strange beeps and squiggly lines, and the thought came to me again, “you are out of sinus rhythm”. Again, I fired back with my statement of faith, “God gave me this and I’m keepin’ it”, and my peace would return.

I fought this fight of faith many times during that 60 minute waiting period, and by thanking God and repeating my statement of faith, I held onto my “Crisp Sinus Rhythm”!

The nurse ran the final EKG and repeated her previous “beautiful” statement, and I was released from the hospital soon after. Praise the Lord!

My wife was out in the waiting room, because of COVID-19 she was not allowed back in the recovery area with me, although she was hearing bits and pieces of my God intervention from the doctor and intake nurses.

She was super excited to see me and hear how God had answered our prayers and to hear how He had orchestrated my miracle.

Even with masks on you could still see the joy in our eyes as they were lit up with excitement, and we praised God. I looked at her and exclaimed “you can’t make this stuff up” as we headed out to the car.

Once in the car, my wife was so excited about the goodness of God that she wanted to hear every detail right there in the parking lot. We shouted and praised God, we thanked God over and over for His goodness, we laughed and we cried with joy and relief. Glory be to God!

My wife really took hold of my statement of faith “God gave me normal sinus rhythm and I’m keepin’ it”. She reminds me of this whenever I have any symptoms that try to return. Amen! We need faithful spouses and friends to help us hold onto our miracles and the workings of God in our lives!

As I look back I see how the outcome is directly related to the life my wife and I choose to live daily. By the grace of God, we put God first every day, we read our Bible first thing, and we do not compromise the word of faith when it comes to our beliefs. We do what the Word says as much as depends on us and that is much. Amen!

By the grace of God, we obey God’s teachings throughout the Bible and do our best to trust Him in every area of our life. We endeavor to be Spirit-led and to heed the Word of God to the best of our daily abilities. Do we miss it at times, sure, but we repent and get right back in the right place with God because He is faithful.

God wants all of us to walk in; signs, wonders, and miracles. Now in this time, today! Amen!

It’s easy to look at what’s happening around you and miss what’s happening inside you. I will repeat that for affect, “we look so intently at what’s happening around us, that we miss what’s happening inside us”. Selah!

To be honest, leading up to the procedures I was only asking God to “guide the doctors’ hands”, “let me not have any adverse side effects from the medicine, etc.”. I let the things that were happening to me, dictate my prayers. But thanks be to God, He had much more available and in store for me.

I should have had the faith to ask God to intervene before I was lying on the table, but I was looking at everything around me, all of our fears stop at the point of our faith. My faith was in my doctor’s abilities and in modern medicine, which is okay…

But God being full of grace saw my heart and responded to the faith available for this situation and based the outcome on His abilities not my seemingly lack of faith. Oh, how thankful I am to have a loving, powerful, miracle-working God, who loves me and sees me through Jesus.

I am also thankful for a praying wife and praying children. God truly does listen and answer our prayers.

I will close with my opening, “God did it, and He’s marvelous in my eyes.”

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you like this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content: Revelation 19:10, Romans 13:13, Jeremiah 8:22, Acts 3:16, Deuteronomy 10:21, and Psalm 116: 1-2, “I love the Lord because he heard my voice. He heard my cry for His help. Because He paid attention to me, I will call out to Him as long as I live”! Amen!

I’m Not Worthy, but I’m Worth It

“I’m not worthy, but I’m worth it, a saying I am sure you’ve heard. Another like it around church-going people is, “I’m not worthy, but Jesus makes me worthy”, very truthful but let’s look deeper into this truth.

As I was praying one morning, this word came up in me, “You’re a wise and worthy God”, and “When I pull from Your wisdom, my life becomes worth it.”

Two words stand out here, wisdom and worth; let’s define these two words in Webster’s dictionary.

Wisdom: Knowledge and the capacity to make due use of… Worth: Equivalent in value to the sum of the item specified… Wow!

My life becomes equal in value or worth it, based on the sum of the wisdom that’s been given to me by God, and my acceptance of it.

So I (we) have a part to play in being worth it. We must humbly seek God’s wisdom and be open to accept and receive it. By doing so our lives produce for us a value in the Kingdom of God! Amazing right?

This leading from God in my prayer that morning was grounded in Colossians 1:9 that says; “For this reason since the day we heard about you we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives”. Amen!

After reading this passage it sparked another word that came up in me; “Wisdom begins in wonder, and is found in the Spirit”. So our worth begins in our acceptance of the wonder of Jesus, but it doesn’t stop there. Hallelujah!

As we continue in the wisdom and knowledge of God and His Word, His Word leads us right into “His will” that we just read about in Colossians 1:9.

God’s will for us requires our wise behavior, which is actually the Hebrew word “tushiyah” (too-shee-yaw). Biblical verses about wisdom can also be categorized in the Latin meaning “wise and powerful”.

Wise and powerful behavior gives us a Kingdom worth that only God can provide in us so that in God’s Kingdom we become totally worth it.

Following God’s character found throughout the scriptures sets us apart as worthy.

We should revisit the definition of worth.

Equivalent in value to what has been specified…

When we line our lives up with God’s specifications we rise up to a worth that is not even measurable on earth, it takes a heavenly measurement to even get an accurate reading of our worth. Wow!

We can then understand the “On earth as it is in heaven” passage that is found in Matthew 6:10, a part of the Lord’s Prayer. Amen!

As a person with wise and powerful behavior, we believe a few things about God; He is God, He is the Creator and Ruler of all things, and that He has placed His divine order within us.

When we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior we become saved and wise people, able to operate in moral laws, guided by moral principles, always aware of God’s characteristics working in and through us to uphold justice and make peace!

We must look at the world through the grid of “God’s Truth” we then base our decisions and actions on our inner ability to obey these truths.

The Holy Spirit in us gives us this inner ability and our obedience to the truth brings us through the heavenly measuring system by which we will soon see our Savior and King, and His name is Jesus!

Oh what a wonderful name, and to see Him face to face… Oh My!

So let’s prepare our minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world! Amen! 1 Peter 1:13

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you liked this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content: 1 Kings 1:52, Mathew 8:8, Matthew 22:8, Matthew 7:21, 2 Peter 3:9, James 1:17, John 3:16, and Romans 12:18.

I will leave you with the Passion Translation of 1 Peter 1:13, “So then, prepare your hearts and minds for action! Stay alert and fix your hope firmly on the marvelous grace that is coming to you. For when Jesus Christ is unveiled, a greater measure of grace will be released to you, Amen!

Let us be found worthy and wanting this amazing grace!

May the Lord bless you while you listen to the song by Chris Tomlin, Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone).

Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) by Chris Tomlin https://youtu.be/KKo3T0j9qqo