Mercy for Today by Jonathan Parnell

We often talk about God’s mercy, and for the most part, we’re glad that our God is so merciful, at least when it comes to not judging us as harshly as we deserve—and maybe we wish He wasn’t quite as merciful when it comes to some of the other people that we know.  Perhaps you have a definition of mercy, a few words that explain that we don’t get what we deserve: and that’s a good thing.

                But what does mercy really mean, and how does it factor in our own life, and even though God doesn’t charge us to be merciful to us, I think that He expects that out of gratitude, we will do certain things. Jonathan Parnell uses Psalm 51 as a starting point and talks about mercy.  His insights are found in Mercy for Today: a Daily Prayer form Psalm 51( B&H Publishing, 2020)

                Parnell starts the introduction by reminding the reader that God is merciful and because God is merciful, we can repent. He suggests that we 1) need to understand God’s mercy at the head level so that we can 2) testify of God’s mercy from our own personal experience.

                And as we learn to testify to God’s mercy we see  how we can praise God, for what he’s doing in our lives, and then we become willing to change, and hopefully actually do so, then we experience God’s presence, and start to live that life of joy that the Psalmist talks about, and which many years later the Apostle Paul would write about from his prison cell in Philippi.

                This book is a great help in understanding mercy as it’s recorded in Lamentations (3:22-23) It’s new every morning.

                As a member of the B&H blogger’s program, I received a copy of this book from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review,

                4/5