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The Paradox of Mercy—Receiving It Requires Giving It

The Paradox of Mercy—Receiving It Requires Giving It

Last updated on: August 9, 2026 at 1:05 am by Henry Karlson

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The Paradox of Mercy—Receiving It Requires Giving It 2026-08-09T01:05:50-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Bartolomé Esteban Murillo: Brother Juniper and the Beggar / Wikimedia Commons

God expects us to show others mercy and grace if we want to experience mercy and grace for ourselves. If we won’t, if we we deny the way of mercy, we have denied ourselves the way which we can obtain mercy. God is always willing to show us mercy, giving us an abundant amount of grace, but if we want to activate that grace, we must engage it, cooperate with it, let it grow in us like a seed, watering it through acts of mercy and love. When we are not merciful, when we deny mercy to others, we deny the seed of grace the water which it needs to grow. We must, therefore, embrace the spirit of mercy, activate the seed of grace, by being merciful to others. What we do always has its consequences; our sins comes with various debts which we must pay, and it would be impossible for us to do so without God’s mercy and grace. It would end up becoming a never-ending struggle, like Sisyphus trying to roll a boulder up a mountain: we might be able to do a little, but as we do some good, as we make some restitution for what we have done, we will find ourselves falling for other sins, each requiring us to make restitution for them as well. Eventually, we will grow tired and everything will come crashing down, bringing us back to where we started from (if not into a worse position). This is one of the messages we should obtain from the parable Jesus told about a king who wanted all the debts his servants owed him to be settled. Jesus tells us that there was servant who had a great debt, one which the king forgave when his servant asked him to, just as God will forgive our sins if we ask for help:

Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the reckoning, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents; and as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, `Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him the lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt (Matt. 18:23-27 RSV).

God, thanks to God’s great love and compassion for us, takes pity on us and help us out of the problems we have created for ourselves thanks to our sins. God does this in and through Jesus, who, upon taking upon our nature, shared our burdens with us. What we cannot accomplish by ourselves, we now find Jesus there, helping us. We must still do our part, which means, we must after follow him, doing what he tells us to do. Among those things, we must imitate him, being merciful to others, even willing to help them with their burdens if we can. There are, of course, many ways we can do this, but when we do so, we must not become prideful, we must always remember, much of what we can do is thanks to the grace we received from Christ. If we are unwilling to be merciful, if we are unwilling to follow Jesus and imitate him, and the love and mercy he has shown us, if we prove ungrateful and return to our old ways, the ways of malice, the ways of legalism without mercy, we find such malice will lead to our own undoing, as Christ implied with the rest of his parable:

But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat he said, `Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, `Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, `You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Matt. 18:28-35 RSV).

Several times in his ministry, Jesus reminded us of the value of mercy. He said if we want forgiveness, we must be willing to forgive others. The issue is not that if we deny others mercy, God will not be merciful to us: God is always showing mercy and love towards everyone. The problem lies in us and our unwillingness to embrace that mercy, an embrace which requires us to not only accept God’s forgiveness for us, but to take on the quality of mercy and let it transform us so that all we do is done in and with that mercy. This can, at times, be very difficult; there will be people we find it difficult to show mercy, especially as we are concerned that if we show them mercy, they will not change their ways and they will continue to do great evil in the world. However, we must remember, being merciful does not mean we need deny justice; what it means is that when we seek justice for some great wrong, or to stop someone from doing great evil in the world, mercy must always be a component of the justice we want to establish in the world.

When we reflect upon ourselves, and our lives, coming to know ourselves better, we will how embracing mercy not only helps relieve us of our burdens, but makes us better people, capable of finding more and more peace in our lives. We will also understand there are many ways we can show mercy to others. Sometimes, it will mean more than showing them forgiveness; often, it will mean, following Jesus, becoming in solidarity with others, so that we can place their burdens upon ourselves, as Paul did in his evangelism:

If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too much if we reap your material benefits? If others share this rightful claim upon you, do not we still more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ (1 Cor. 9:11-12 RSV).

Throughout Scripture, but especially through the words of Christ, we learn how important it us to live our lives showing mercy to others, helping them in the way Christ has helped us. We must never place unnecessary, difficult burdens upon others, for when we do so, we find we end up placing them upon ourselves as well. We should always do what we can to relieve others of their burden. This is how we are to live our lives with mercy and grace, and the more we do so, the more we will see the grace not only activate in us, but grow, changing us, making us better, greater than we could ever imagine.

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N.B.: While I read comments to moderate them, I rarely respond to them. If I don’t respond to your comment directly, don’t assume I am unthankful for it. I appreciate it. But I want readers to feel free to ask questions, and hopefully, dialogue with each other. I have shared what I wanted to say, though some responses will get a brief reply by me, or, if I find it interesting and something I can engage fully, as the foundation for another post. I have had many posts inspired or improved upon thanks to my readers.

General Christian

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