I have just been reading something from Joyce Meyer who was
saying that she had great difficulty in the past from being merciful because
she had never truly received God’s mercy for herself. She had no mercy from God
to give others.
We can never give to others what we have not already
received or have access to. I cannot
give you a glass of water if I have neither a glass nor access to fresh water.
In the same way I cannot give you grace if I have not received God’s grace for
myself. I was a very graceless person because I was hard and legalistic to myself
and therefore to others. If I made a mistake I beat myself up about it so if
others also made mistakes, even if I did not say anything, mentally I was criticising
them for their mistakes. God had to show me how ‘bad’ I was and how much grace
he had shown me, so that I too could show that same grace to others. It was a
bit of a revelation to realise how graceless I was.
This difficulty can infiltrate all sorts of areas of our
lives. If we feel guilty, we want to make everyone else feel guilty; if we feel
shame, we want to blame others; if we feel rejected, we reject others and so
on. What we have, we give to others. The
great news though is that as we get revelation of this, we do not have to sit
in a pond of despair but realise that God is holding out his hand to lift us
out. Jesus suffered to take all our sin, guilt, shame, rejection, sickness and
every work of the enemy from our lives.
It takes time but God is patient and as we let him work in our lives, he
will bring us to wonderful places of freedom.
So as we have been shown grace, we will be very gracious; as
we have been shown mercy, we will be merciful; as God has set us free from sin
and shame, we will walk confident in God’s goodness and love and show that to
others. Where God has healed us, we will have great faith for healing for
others. The very areas of greatest weakness and shame in my life have been
turned around by God to bring freedom to others in those very same areas. As a
teenager, I made quite a mess of my life – I was insecure, rejected and behaved
very badly. As God has healed me, he has given me such a heart for teenagers
not to have to walk through the things I put myself through. It is such an
honour to help them find God’s love and walk through those tricky teenage years
holding his hand and not walk through hopeless and helpless, trying all sorts of
useless things to fill the void in their hearts.
So freely give what God has given you and if you are still
struggling with some areas in your life, give them over to God, stop struggling
and trust him to bring wonderful freedom that will bring great glory to him and
help others. My old life honoured nobody; my new life I live for him to honour
him as best I can. 
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