{"id":15917,"date":"2025-08-25T08:30:53","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T13:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/?p=15917"},"modified":"2025-08-26T08:33:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:33:05","slug":"mercy-and-truth-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/15917\/mercy-and-truth-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercy and Truth update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Hey everybody.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I omitted an important aspect of the Mercy and Truth message from yesterday:\u00a0 There MUST be a balance\u00a0of mercy and truth in our souls; otherwise, we will make trouble for ourselves and others.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0If in our hearts, truth is more important\u00a0than mercy, we may become more concerned with being right than with being like Jesus.\u00a0 We can become hard-hearted toward those who have erred, if truth\u00a0is not equally\u00a0balanced with mercy within us.\u00a0 The root of that imbalance is pride, which comes from losing sight of the mercy God has shown us and from taking credit for how right we are.\u00a0 I believe that earlier in my life, I erred in this direction.\u00a0 Jesus has corrected me by putting me through some hard chastening, and I thank\u00a0him for\u00a0it.\u00a0 But if he sees I need even more\u00a0adjustment, I feel sure he will meet that need.\u00a0 I certainly\u00a0pray that he will.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Different problems arise when mercy carries more weight with\u00a0us than the truth\u00a0does.\u00a0 We cannot be more merciful that God is.\u00a0\u00a0&#8220;His mercy endures forever,&#8221; and His &#8220;lovingkindness is as high as heaven&#8221;.\u00a0 But we can show mercy at the wrong\u00a0time and to the wrong person, which God never does.\u00a0 Truth must\u00a0balance the feelings of mercy that\u00a0Jesus\u00a0gives us.\u00a0 If it does not, then we will show mercy when God has not, and sinners will see us as suckers, and the\u00a0world will take advantage of us.\u00a0 Also, by doing that, we may give those sinners\u00a0a wrong idea about God, for they will think He is like us.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When we treat others with a balance of truth and mercy, we have found God&#8217;s secret path to happiness, and are very blessed.\u00a0 His righteousness and His peace are on that pathway, and how good it is to find it!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Psalm 85:10: &#8220;Mercy and truth have met.\u00a0\u00a0Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.&#8221;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hey everybody. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I omitted an important aspect of the Mercy and Truth message from yesterday:\u00a0 There MUST be a balance\u00a0of mercy and truth in our souls; otherwise, we will make trouble for ourselves and others. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0If in our hearts, truth is more important\u00a0than mercy, we may become more concerned with being [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15918,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15917\/revisions\/15918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}