Loving Others as Yourself — Billy Strachan

Pure Religion and Serving Others

Let's turn to the epistle of James, and we are at chapter 2, and we are now seeing the things that you can do to alleviate your own suffering from the mental anguish of the internal torments and temptations of the mind processes.

And we saw that not only was there a good gift of a sufficient savior in your heart to draw upon to combat those inner temptations, but there are certain things you can do practically, and one of them is to occupy yourself positively in serving others with pure religion, giving yourself to those that are in need, those that require help, those that require love, those that require anything.

Occupy giving, and you will find that it will rebound in your getting. And then we started in chapter 2 noting that true religion, pure religion manifests itself in three ways, and we saw first and foremost that it manifests itself without respect of persons, and we are not to become partial in ourselves and start judging people and having evil thoughts on people as to whether this one or that one merits our friendship, merits our love, merits our attention, merits our salvation, merits a word of witness.

It is none of your business. All people have to hear, all people have to get to know, and God is no respecter of persons. And then in verse 5, it works with God's choice in mind. It works with God's choice in mind.

Listen, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? You will balance out any imbalance in your own life if you will keep it in mind that the gospel is designed for the poorest of people.

And remember that very often the reason for the poorness in spirit, poorness in wealth, poorness in life of some people is that that is also a manifestation of sin. Some people just are bad managers of life, and no matter if you went into their bank, cleared up all their debts, gave them a thousand pounds deposit and said that's yours, I've cleared everything, there's a fresh start, by 24 hours gone they'd be in debt again.

It just is a manifestation of sin. There are people that are bad managers of wealth, there are people that do not have the ability to run life and do things properly, and yet they need the gospel too.

That is how sin is trying to spoil that person, and they have to become people that are reached by the word, and never try in getting a person like that into the kingdom, then try to get them out of that area of life.

Leave God to decide whether he moves people out of that area, because even if you take a sophisticated case like for instance Hollywood, I had been the guest speaker in the Paramount Warner Brothers and Desilu Studios, Universal Studios, for two or three years running back in the early 60s, just to move around the sets and speak to the stars about Jesus Christ, and it was interesting to hear some of them saying, it's amazing that God has had to bring a man across the ocean to tell this nation that has the biggest missionary outreach to the world with the gospel, to tell us about Jesus Christ, because nobody from America comes to Hollywood to minister to us in Hollywood, because they just reckon we are unredeemable, and if we do get saved, they say the proof of our being born again is we'll quit the industry tomorrow, but they don't realize that until the moment of our conversion, we were seeped in millions of dollars of debt, because we live in credit of what the next film is going to bring in.

We've never met Christians that have said yet, well now that you're converted, leave the film industry and we'll pay your debts. No, they just say stop, but then leave them in poverty, and very often the reason God keeps some people saved and inside that industry is that you're not going to get into it to reach them, so he has to keep the saved of that industry in the industry to reach people within the industry, and very often you'll find people who are converted in a poor area of the world, are quite content with their poverty, to know that they're saved, and to know that they're on their way to heaven, but still be quite happy in their poverty, and are very acceptable to the other poor people in bringing them the gospel, because you won't go there, and they're able to reach within their own grouping, and yet if we simply get them saved and immediately pull them out, because we think an evidence of salvation is that you become middle class, upper class, rich, clean, and never have any of these kind of setbacks, you're just, it's a lie.

It's an absolute lie. I think it's hilarious when you meet a chief in a jungle, who's wearing three feathers in his nose, talking to me about the Lord Jesus, and giving me a hug before I fly away, and thanking God that he'd lived long enough to meet his brother in the Lord, and I've often wondered, I wonder how a brethren assembly would react if he walked into a morning meeting in Britain.

I know that these things are related, and they are relative to their own particular situation, and of course we wouldn't want a man like that walking into a morning service, but it makes it hilarious when you go into denominational churches in our sophisticated society, and find somebody at the door taking somebody aside, and telling them you can't be Christian if you dress like this, or you dress like that, or you're not wearing this, or you're not wearing that, or you're not doing this, and you're not doing that, because quite honestly it has nothing whatsoever to do with being born again, and to make these things an absolute requirement for salvation is a sin against the Word of God, and one has to keep it in mind that you don't practice your faith with respective persons, you practice it always keeping in mind God's choice.

It's designed to reach the sinfulest and poorest of people, not the good people, not the good people, and I've often told people in charge of this place, if all I'm going to get is 200 students that are good, that sit down and just take notes and go home at the end, I'm quitting.

There's no stretch there for me. I enjoy putting wrecks together. I enjoy the people that stretch me to the limit, and trying to love them, and help them, and see them through their problems, but it's so much more convenient if people are not problematic.

It's so much more convenient if you have just a bunch of people that do everything right. Then it means you can get your wage with no strain, but that's not the gospel, and we know that this place attracts people that come, not because they want the Bible, because they're in very deep need, and we are here to help you in that need, and to attempt to bring you a means of security in Christ, not a security in system, and the gospel is designed with you and choice.

There are those of you still convinced that you're too poor a Christian, and too poor in spirit to ever be picked to be used by God for anything. I'm sorry, it's just you he's designed it for, and it's his choice, but you have despised the poor.

Verse 6, here was the attitude of that early church. You've despised the poor, and yet you don't like it when it comes to yourself. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats.

Do you like it? Do you like it in Roman Jerusalem, and Roman Palestine, when these people can march you into a court, and grab all your worldly goods, and take them away from you? No, you don't like it.

Well, why practice it on others? Do not they blaspheme the worthy name by which you are called? And so now it moves into the third evidence of how true religion manifests itself, and that is in loving your neighbor as yourself, in loving your neighbor as yourself.

Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself

If you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, if you want an air of dignity, an air of majesty about your Christian experience, if you want to walk around like one of the lords of the land with a crown on your head as a Christian, it's quite simple.

Obey the royal law. The law that gives you dignity is that if you love your neighbor as yourself. If you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. You do well, but of course this is where the crunch comes.

If you've never learned to love yourself, you'll never learn to love others. Everything you hate in you, you'll hate in them. And lots of Christians have not learned to love themselves. Yes, but brother Billy, my text is Galatians 2 .20.

Have you ever had that? I've had that. When I mentioned repeatedly in one lecture one year about the necessity to learn to love yourself, and to love others as yourself, somebody came in and said to me, but I don't agree with that.

I don't love myself. I said, that's evident. They said, but my text is Galatians 2 .20. I said, what does that say? It says I am crucified with Christ. I'm dead. I said, why don't you finish the text?

They said, what do you mean? I said, Galatians 2 .20 doesn't say I am crucified with Christ and put a full stop after it. No, it goes further than that. It says this, I am crucified with Christ, colon, colon, not a full stop.

Nevertheless, nevertheless, guess what? I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

And so before you finish the verse, you discover there are four eyes and three me's still kicking around after one of them died. And I don't bite this bit that I am dead. You see, that is a cop out. If you're dead, then you don't have to worry about it, do you?

If you're really dead, there's nothing in life that you can do if you're dead. But you don't need to read the Bible for proof that you're very much from dead. Go read the newspapers. You'll find that nearly every daily newspaper attests to the fact that so-called holy people who thought they were dead in Christ and complete new creatures and that nothing in life of any sin nature ever affected them.

Go read the newspapers and you'll find that you'll read reports of the vicar who ran away with somebody else's wife, the deacon who's been caught stealing the offering from the church. You'll find that all sorts of reports come in about the sin that bursts out in a congregation.

Well, where did that come from? I thought they were dead. You see, you have to understand this business about I am crucified with Christ and I've got to kill myself and die daily. Understand what's got to die, but understand what's got to live.

Paul's Example of Pressing Toward the Goal

I mean, even Paul, who wrote that in his own personal testimony in Philippians. If you just look in Philippians in chapter three, he says there, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord to write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it's safe.

Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. The people are around the faith that are just there to wreck the whole thing. For we are the circumcision which worship God in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and with no confidence in the flesh.

Granted, we don't trust ourselves that we have anything in ourselves to be anything of ourselves for God. Without him, we can do nothing. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if anybody ever could say I deserve to be regarded as spiritual, I, Paul, could.

If any other man thinks he has wear off, he might trust in the flesh. I more, if it was based on self-effort, I could be at the top of the tree. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews is touching the law of Pharisee.

How more religious could you get than that? Concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, nobody could pick a hole in me. Boy, that's quite a claim. That I was so perfect as touching the law, not one of my neighbors could point the finger at me and say, ah, we know something about you.

But what things were gained to me, because that's the only person that benefits from all that legalistic law-keeping, ritualistic binding of yourself into a system to prove you're holy to God and prove you're holy to other people, is that it's self-gain.

But those things that were gained to me, I counted loss for Christ. I chucked them all out the window for Christ, ye doubtless. And I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dumb, that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death, if that by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained either, were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am also apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Brethren, I count not myself to have reached the perfection goal, but this one thing I do, here is my daily occupation, forgetting those things that are behind, I can never get yesterday back again, it's gone.

And reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And if you read all of that through, you will find there were five eyes alive before he counted all a loss for Christ, and there were ten eyes alive after he counted everything a loss for Christ.

Yes, there is an eye that is very much alive after you've counted everything a loss for Christ. You're not just some numb zombie that's dead. He says, but I forget things behind and I'm pressing forward to things in front of me.

Forget things behind, reach things before. Forget things behind, reach things before. Live today, your heart was never created to carry more than one day at a time. Some of you are nearly broken back this morning because you're still carrying yesterday.

Sorry, it's gone. It's gone to the cross, you can't get that back. Some of you are nearly broken back because you're thinking of tomorrow, next week, the week after, what will you do next year? And it's killing you.

Stop it. You're only made by God to carry today and take the next step into what's in front of you. Well, what eye dies? The eye that dies is the independent me that can be like God without God's help.

Dying to Self-Effort and Living by Christ

That's got to die daily. When we get up in the morning and say there is nothing I can do to be like God and I hate and I render to death and will reckon dead today the eye that's rotten, the eye that thinks it can stop its rottenness, the eye that thinks it can improve, the eye that thinks it can be more loving than it was yesterday, just give it a little fanning into life, just train it a little bit more, that's got to die.

Well, what's the eye that has to live? And the eye that you have to love to the extent you love that eye and everybody else. Well, that eye is the eye that's now the new creation of I plus Christ in me.

And the I plus Christ in me, I'm now allowed to encourage and love so that I am dead to self-effort, but I am now responding to my living Savior and step by step throughout today, I am reaching forth to allow him to be in and through me everything that will make me appear to be a different creature than I was before.

And I will be allowing him time to change me, to rectify me, to correct me, to alter everything in my life and proceed from there. And let him take care of it all. And when I am conscious of dying to the old independent me that's going to make me a good Christian for Jesus and turn around every morning and say, let's get on with the process of taking the eye that you are now living in to live through and do through me something that you've never done yesterday and make me be the kind of person I couldn't be by self-effort.

If you join that process, you're then going to step back and allow that dignity to be practiced in other people. You will then step back and stop being the big teachers and judges and shaping each other and say, look, if I'm giving him time to change me, I'm going to give him time to change them.

If I'm loving the eye that he's beginning to take control of, I'm going to love the eye in others that he's beginning to take control of. And when I see how long it took him to get me where I am, then surely I'm going to take time to let them get where they are.

And that's the marvelous thing about developing and loving your neighbor as yourself. You can see everything that's wrong in you and you quit trying to change it for God because you can't. So you start allowing him day by day, step by step, temptation by temptation, problem by problem, pressure by pressure to be what you need in the midst of that to get you through it.

And when you do that, you then start loving your neighbor as yourself. You see them under pressure. You love them and you encourage them to let the Lord see them through it instead of whapping them on the head and tell them to stop that.

Just stop that. Don't do it. And have you ever noticed that you say don't do it to people about things you don't like them doing that you don't do? You see, if stealing doesn't bother you, if you come across the thief here, you'll say to them, stop it.

You can never understand why you do it. Just stop it. And the reason you say that is stealing just isn't a hang up for you. You never steal. It's never been a problem for you. The one thing you never do is steal.

And you can never understand somebody that steals. So you just tell them to stop it. If I don't do it, you should be able not to do it. And so you always tell people just legalistically to stop it. I don't do that, so stop it.

If I don't do it, you should be able not to do it, so stop it. But then what you don't realize is that they could look at you and see something you can do that they'd never do. Are they going to have the right to turn around to say to you, and you stop that?

I'll stop my stealing if you stop your gossiping. I'll stop my stealing if you stop your hating. I'll stop my stealing if you stop the mental cruelty. And they have a right to say to you, so just stop it.

I'm never mentally cruel. I might steal your purse, but I'm never mentally cruel. I might steal your purse, but I never gossip, so just stop gossiping. But you discover, you see, we all have our weaknesses.

We're all weak, but about different things. And we have to learn to love the I that is now the new creation, Christ in me, a unit, who's beginning the process of altering me into what he wants me to be.

And that's liberating, because when he says, let's make an adjustment, he gives you the power to adjust. You see, my life, my life when I became a Christian, I was like somebody that was standing outside the life, the house of my life.

My life was like a big house, and I couldn't get in the front door. I couldn't get my heels onto the doorstep of my own life because of the spirit bottles all filling up the doorstep. And when I turned to Christ, it's as though he came along with a dustpan and a brush, swept in all the bottles and put them in the trash can and left a lovely, clean doorstep.

And I stepped on it. Boy, I was a new creature in Christ. Look at me. I wasn't like this yesterday. I was down there in the gutter. But today I'm walking on the doorstep of my life. This is my life here.

I'm a new creature in Christ. Look, I'm on the doorstep. Look, I'm on the doorstep. Boy, I bet you I'm ready to be a bishop by this time next week. Maybe they'll make me a cardinal. Who knows? Might become a preacher, a missionary, because I've got a clean doorstep.

You know, and I was so thrilled to bits with my clean doorstep and wanted everybody to see I was forgiven and a new person in Christ until one day there was a tap on my shoulder by the Holy Spirit. And I turned and said, yeah.

And when I turned around, there was a door. Lord, where did that door come from? That's the door to your life, Billy. You mean I've got more than a doorstep? Oh, yes. You've got a whole house in there.

Well, how come I never noticed that door before? You couldn't see it for bottles before. Now we've got rid of the bottle problem. Would you like to go in? Oh, of course. I'm a new creature in Christ. In fact, I'd like to invite the whole church into my house to see what wonderful person I am now.

I'm a Christian. And I flung the door open and looked in and jumped in and shut the door and bolted and barbed it and threw the key away. And I looked around the filthiest hallway imaginable. I thought, oh, Lord, how long have I had a dirty, filthy hallway like this?

Look at the graffiti all over the wall. When did I write that up? When did I do that drawing? Look at that memory. This is filthy. God, why didn't you tell me? Look, we were getting rid of the bottles first.

Now that we've got that done, will you cooperate with me to clean up the hallway? And I just had to settle down to get to work with the Lord to clean up the hallway of my life. Until it was so clean and spotless, I didn't mind leaving the front door open some days and hope that people would look in.

Hello, lovely, clean hallway, you know. And I was really improving. I really think I'll become an evangelist now. I mean, I've got more than a doorstep. I've got a hallway till one day the spirit tapped me and I turned around and there was a door in the hallway.

So where did that door come from? Oh, that's one of the doors on this floor. Doors? You mean there's more than one room in this floor? Yes, there's six doors of this corridor. Six? Yes, on this floor.

Floor? You mean, Lord, I'm not just a bungalow, a sort of loaded cottage? I'm a house with upstairs? Don't worry about it. We're just starting in this room, shall we? Now, I don't know about you guys.

I've been a Christian 29 years. It was just a matter of about a month or so ago that the spirit tapped. In fact, there's a groove, if I can show you. There's a sort of hole there where he keeps poking his finger.

It's developed down the years. And when I turned around, he showed me the elevator. I don't know about you guys, but I have a skyscraper. Maybe you managed to say one prayer and get your life all put together nice and sweet quick.

But I've discovered my house is like a skyscraper and the spirit says to me going up. You know, in every floor I get up there, after 29 years I'm still discovering things in my life that he says, now, we're going to work on that and change this room.

Work on that and change this room. Well, I'll tell you one thing that's taught me down those 29 years. The minute I see a baby Christian in a mess that's just got converted, I learned to love my neighbor as myself.

I say to myself, striking, take a look at you. Why are you like you are now? Knowing thoroughly what you are and that you're not practicing as a lifestyle of what you are. Why? Because Lord of the work you've done in me for 29 years.

So what do you think about this new baby Christian? Hey, just think what he's going to be like in 29 years time. And you know, I'll tell you, it is always the first 30 years is the hardest in a new convert.

After that, they're not too bad to handle. Just wait 30 years with everybody you lead to Christ and you'll see a big difference in them. Learn to wait. But you beggars won't wait 30 seconds with a new convert.

You want them to leap from birth right to where you are right now. And that's impossible. You don't bring a newborn baby home and give it a T-bone steak. Hasn't even got teeth. Couldn't gum it's way through the meat, never mind the bone.

You don't do that. You wait years for them to grow up and you love them as you love yourself. What is it you love in yourself? You love the fact you've discovered I can't do it. I can't change myself.

I can't rectify myself. I can't stop sinning. I can't stop falling to my weaknesses. I can't stop falling to temptations. I can't stop all that rubbish. God, I hate the me that independently tries to stop to be holy for you that always ends up a wreck.

Now I'm going to start loving the me that will look to you to live your law keeping life in and through me for you and not me doing it for you. And as I allow that process to proceed in my life, every new Christian I come across, I think I'll just put my arm around them.

I know they're in a mess. I'll give them 30 years and let you do for them what you've done for me. So I will practice true religion and love them as I love myself. I'll be patient with them. I'll be long suffering, but you're going to have to be that for me, Lord, because I can't produce that.

But just teach me the art of letting you, the law keeper, live your life in and through me to be a blessing to others. And if you're occupied doing that, there's plenty people around that are so weak in their faith that just need your strength, that need the advanced stage you're at with the Lord to be a means of encouragement to them.

And instead of simply saying, don't do that, stop it. You need to sit down beside them and say, you know, I used to be like that. I used to do that. He didn't. Yeah. Oh, I was afraid to tell you. I thought you'd slap my face because you're so perfect and so holy to me.

I never thought you could be like that. Never knew you those sins existed. Oh yeah. I've done it all. How come you're not doing it now because of him. So let me love you until you learn to let him take control.

Oh, it's very practical. Very, very practical. Instead of being over-occupied and being judgmental and punishing people and expecting them to mature and hurry up and be as good as I am. Oh no, verse eight.

The Law, Sin, and Human Inability

If you fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, there shall love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well. But if you have respect to persons, you commit sin and are convinced of the law as transgressors for whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

For he that said, do not commit adultery said also, do not kill. Now, if you commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. If you're telling people not to do one thing, because that's wrong, just always remember, you're as bad yourself because you've done something else.

You're just in the same boat. None of us can keep the law, but he can. So we have to train each other to rely on him who is the law keeper to live his life through us. So if today you don't steal, it won't be because you've stopped it.

It's because you'll have said, Lord, stop me from doing it. Be my honesty today. And if he's practicing his honesty through you, you won't go into somebody's door and take the money out because Christ never steals.

But if you have success today and not stealing today, it's not because you're improving. It's because he, the law keeper hasn't done that through you today. And every one of us will find that we've got our Achilles heel, our weakness, and we're guaranteed to fail.

None of us will make the grade. None of us can look at each other and say, I'm better than you are. I don't have those problems. You have a problem. And remember that the first sin was not adultery or murder.

The first sin was pride. And it was committed in heaven. And that's the most difficult one to deal with. I'm so proud. I'm not like other people. But if you've just broken one of them, you're a transgressor.

You're just as bad as the other. A shoe is a shoe, whether it's size one or size 20. A sin is a sin, whether it's size one or size 20. There are no sizes to sin. It's us that starts evaluating sin as bad, worse, very bad, much worse than the last.

No, no, it's all sin. And we're all sinners. So we all need to support and love one another. And what better way to get out of a lot of problems than to be overoccupied and helping somebody with their problem?

And you'll never be able to keep the law. So neither will they. Just as you rely on Christ to get there, they'll have to rely on Christ to get there. Occupy yourself with that because you'll never do it.

Yes, but I'm so much better than others, Billy. I think it's just a wee bit extra spurt and I'll make it. No, you won't. It's like me deciding, let's jump from Morecambe Bay promenade across to Ireland.

And I take on a challenge. How about it? And I say, fellas, I think I'd love today in the afternoon to go down there and have a bash at jumping from Morecambe Bay to Ireland. And you look at me and you say, you?

And I say, yeah, I think I could do it. And Giles, he chuckles and he says, I'll do it. These old men will never get off the ground. I am youthful, light, slender. I think I could do it. But then one of these bearded Australians turns around and says, listen, digger, you palmy, you'll never do it.

But we guys that live in this stuff, we guys that live on Bondi Beach and are the greatest, we'll do it. So all three of us go down there to the beach, down there to Morecambe promenade. And Giles says, after me, please.

I'll do that. But the Australian says, no, no, I'll do it. And so Giles and I step back and nudge each other and say, let him go. And so he takes a run and a leap and he leaps off the end of the pier.

And we watch him going four feet and hitting the water and drowning. And we watch the bubbles. And Giles says, I knew that. I knew he was, you know, maybe it looked like he was young and had the stamina.

With the weight, he'd never get past four feet. Just watch me. And so he goes to the end of the promenade and he starts a run. And he runs and he runs and he runs and he runs past me, straight off the end of the promenade, off the pier, and he passes the Australian's bubbles and says, I knew it, knew I could do better than you.

And he goes for another one foot. And as he's lying there dying, saying, didn't I do much better? I look at their bubbles and I say, ah, you young things, you don't know what it's like. It takes maturity, age.

So I go to Lancaster and go up the top of the hill. And I start from there and I run all the way to Morecambe. And I get straight off the end of the pier and I pass that last Australian bubble. And I pass that last English bubble.

And I go for another three inches. Now, as I'm lying there dying, saying, didn't I do well? I come to one conclusion. I might have done a little bit better than the others, but I still never got there.

And that's exactly what the law is going to prove to you. That you might be able to look around this room and say, I've done better than others, but I regret to announce you will never get there. The law has often been described like a huge chain that's fastened to a post inside the throne room of heaven, dangling down through the atmosphere to the earth.

And you're on your way up to get into heaven. Which link of the chain can you do without and still get there? And the answer is none. No matter what chain link you remove, it will not be long enough to let you get there.

It will break. And so if you pride yourself, you've never murdered. Don't. It just means you haven't had the chance, but you can. You've never stolen. Don't. It just means you haven't yet, but you can.

And everybody has to confess they're capable of breaking the law and indeed they do break the law. So learn to love your neighbor as yourself. Understand they're just as weak as you are and you're just as weak as they are.

Therefore we both need to encourage each other in hope in Christ to get us there. So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy that showed no mercy and mercy rejoices against judgment.

Mercy as the Practical Expression of Faith

Instead of being over-occupied and being judgmental and judging everybody, learn to be merciful. Give them the opposite of what they deserve. The opposite of what they deserve. And if you see somebody that's irritating you in school today and you wish you could slap their face, give them the opposite of what they deserve.

Hug them instead. If you see somebody that should be thrown out for their behavior, give them the opposite of what they deserve. Keep them. That's mercy. Mercy is the opposite of what you deserve. It's not what you've earned.

Mercy is where you agree that what you should get is what you should get, but you don't. You get the opposite. The finest example of mercy in the Bible is in Mephibosheth, the last living relative of King Saul.