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Tenderhearted Mercy (Colossians 3:12)

Scripture of the Day: Colossians 3:12

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Oh goodness, isn't that great advice?! As a mother of a young child, how I wish I could "clothe" myself with the characteristics in the verse above! Sadly, patience is often hard to come by and even kindness and gentleness are hard to come at some moments!

God desires we have these qualities, not only as parents, but because we are His children. Rather than going about our day, instilling qualities that the world may desire we have (greed, ego-centrism, and even a little bit of impatience to name a few) - we are to be prepared every day to go out and be the face of Christ.

That face is always kind, and is capable of having "tenderhearted mercy" for the people we meet. I love the qualifier on the mercy, because I think mercy is good enough on it's own, but when you add "tenderhearted" it makes it even more warm and fuzzy! We must extend grace to the people we see. We must be kind to those we feel don't deserve it and we must forgive even when we have been deeply hurt. I think the only way to do these things is to look at others and see them the way Christ does...which is hard to do sometimes! But we have to try - with the Scripture and each other to hold us accountable!

God will help us look more like his Son and clothe us with the qualities above. We just have to prayerfully ask!

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