Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
What Happens When We Choose Grace Instead of Grudges?
Ever gotten so angry at someone that all you wanted was justice? That burning desire for retribution is something we all experience. In today's episode, Johnny Mac (filling in for his father Danny) vulnerably shares a recent personal struggle with anger and the unexpected spiritual insight that changed everything.
This five-minute devotional challenges us to identify someone in our lives who needs mercy rather than judgment today. What might happen if we followed Jesus's example and chose grace instead of grudges? Join us as we explore this countercultural approach to dealing with those who have wronged us, and discover how choosing mercy can transform both our relationships and our hearts. Subscribe to Starting Right with Danny Mac for daily five-minute devotionals that will help you start your day by starting right.
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mac and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right.
Speaker 2:Hello and good morning. Welcome to another episode of Starting Right with Danny Mac. I'm Johnny Mac, and I'll be filling in again for my dad today, mac, and I'll be filling in again for my dad today. Have you ever gotten really angry at someone who has, in your opinion, done something that has hurt you or a loved one? I know it, I do it quite often. I shouldn't, but I do it. Someone will do something and I'll be ready to grab my torch and pitchfork because what I want is for that person to pay for what they have done. My wife, who is a wonderful woman, accuses me sometimes of seeing everything in shades of black and white, and I gotta admit she's usually right. This was happening not too long ago. A person had done something and I was spitting mad. My wife, who's genuinely a much wiser person than I am, was telling me to pray about it, while all I wanted to do was be angry. But eventually I listened to her and did what she suggested. What I was hoping to hear was God saying something like vengeance is mine. I've got this, but instead a thought popped into my head that I'd never had before Justice is not one of the fruits of the Spirit.
Speaker 2:Justice is not one of the fruits of the Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit can be found in Galatians 5, 22-23, and the Passion Translation puts it this way. But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions, joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart and strength of spirit. Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless. We, as Christians, are meant to bear this fruit Now. I'll be the first to admit that there are plenty of times when I'd love to add justice to this list, but it's not there. What is there? Things like love, patience, gentleness and kindness can be wrapped up in one word when put against the desire for justice Mercy.
Speaker 2:Mercy is the practical expression of the fruits of the Spirit when we feel we have been wronged. It's what Jesus showed to the woman who was caught in adultery in John 8, 3-11. Justice in that time demanded that she be killed. Mercy forgave her and gave her another chance. Justice called for the prodigal son of Luke, 15, 11-32, to be punished.
Speaker 2:Deuteronomy 21, 18-21 actually commands that parents bring rebellious sons like this before the town elders and have them stoned to death. I don't know about you, but I sure am glad that wasn't an option for my parents. But instead Jesus tells the story of a father running to his son, embracing him and welcoming him home. We actually have an even better example of someone choosing mercy over justice just a few chapters later, in Luke 23 34, when Jesus, while nailed to the cross for something he did not do, said father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. James 2 13 says mercy triumphs over judgment. So who do you have in your life today who needs some mercy? I know there's some people in my life that I need to extend it to Be blessed everybody. I hope to be talking to you again soon.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening today and I invite you to join me Monday to Friday, right here on Starting Right with Danny Mac.
