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Key Bible Verse: The Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while punishing the wicked (2 Peter 2:9). Bonus Reading: Psalm 18:3-19

I held my breath and prayed. How could justice and mercy both be upheld? The judge let Magalie say what she had to say, no matter how broken her English or meandering her explanation. Then he swung into action. He gave Magalie new forms, and ordered her to fill out and return them. Grace! I thought to myself. He urged her to get a lawyer to oversee the process. Magalie confessed that she had no money for a lawyer and that several pro bono places had turned her down already (probably because of the fraudulent documents). The judge shook his head in frustration.

Suddenly he turned to the clerk and instructed her to go to his office and retrieve the phone number of a personal friend. Then he turned to Magalie. "Call him and tell him I told you to call," said the judge. "He'll help you." If she failed to call this man and follow his instruction and return to the bench with the properly filled out papers, he told her plainly, he'd summarily deport her.

I sat there deeply moved, muttering to myself, "Behold the kindness and sternness of the judge." But I was thinking of God, really.

—John Ensor in The Great Work of the Gospel

My Response: I'll thank God for his resolve to offer his own Son to clear my guilt.

Thought to Apply: [Mercy] is an attribute to God himself; and earthly power doth then show likest God's when mercy seasons justice.  —William Shakespeare (in The Merchant of Venice)

Adapted from The Great Work of the Gospel (Crossway Books/Good News Publishers, 2006) by permission.

Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Deliver me, God, from an easy familiarity that fails to recognize Your overwhelming power and hatred of sin.

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