The Display of the Father's Love and Mercy
Greetings and good morning brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series
where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years,
the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them
with you. This morning we seek to understand the meanings of the display of the Father's love and
mercy.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Display of the Father's Love and Mercy
Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love for one
another." John, Chapter 13, Verse 35.
Brothers and sisters, today's broadcast, we share with you a recital of an act of the Father's love and
mercy. We do this to further our spiritual insight with the purpose of perfecting our display of the
Father's love and mercy. The story unfolded this way: A certain lady was driving behind a tractor
trailer on her way home when she became involved in an accident. She was not injured herself and
was not effected physically.
Two girls were running alongside the road when a tractor trailer struck them, killing one instantly
and seriously wounding the other. Now when the mother of the dead child was brought to the scene,
the shock was so great that she fainted. An emissary of the Father's love and mercy who following
the tractor trailer got out of her car and went to see if she could help. She worked with the mother
to comfort her and eventually went home with the devastated mother. And she continued to offer her
service. The father of the slain child was a captain serving in Iraq.
Another emissary of love, the Red Cross, set into motion the necessary procedures needed to return
the husband back to the side of his grief-stricken wife. Equally devastated, the husband arrived home
and said, "I can understand dying in Iraq. That is a war zone, but dying here in the safety of this
country is just too much." He was overcome with grief, and he and his wife leaned on the shoulders
of the emissary of mercy, who comforted them, not so much with words but with her gentle
compassionate spirit.
When it was time for them to go to the morgue to identify the child's remains, the parents asked if
she would go with them. She readily agreed, and accompanied them to the morgue where another
wave of uncontrollable grief swept over them. The next day while at home she wondered what else
could she do to comfort them. She looked around and saw a panda bear. She decorated the panda
bear with lace and took it to the home of the bereaved. When she got there, the mother opened the
door and when she saw the panda bear, she fainted. The husband came to the door and invited her
in. After reviving the mother, the husband explained that the panda bear was her deceased daughter's
favorite stuffed animal. They wanted to know how she knew this; she replied that the Lord works
in mysterious ways. Here she was, a foundation of support for this couple who a short while ago
were not even aware of her existence. To a child of the heavenly Father, there are no strangers, only
brothers and sisters who have not met yet. She comforted them and loaned her spirit to support them.
And they began to wonder if she was some sort of official since she knew so much about the
arrangements and all. They wanted to know how she knew all of these things. She replied that she
was just a vessel of the Lord, trying to serve as best she could.
In this service that she had performed, it should be noted that she had already undergone training for
it. Service requires not only desire but knowledge as well. Two kinds of knowledge are essential to
be effective. There is knowledge derived from actual experience (meaning) and knowledge derived
from the spirit as a result of going through the experience (value). The spirit has a plan for our lives;
thus are provided many opportunities for learning the values of the spirit. Many substitute
experiences are used to extract the values and meanings that are essential to the functioning of a true
child of the Father. And the experiences of life provide the factual knowledge. Now let see how these
two components combined and enabled her to do what she did.
Training began very early. At 7 or 8 years of age, her father died as a result of an accident. Therefore,
the death of a loved one was not theoretical for her, not some eventually to be dealt within the remote
future, it was factually real, and a bona fide experience that she traversed. Now those of us who have
lost a parent during childhood understand all of the agony and suffering that this loss brings. We go
through many phases of grief before we emerge with the particular divine value and meaning the
experience is designed to reveal. First there is the shock of losing the loved one, followed by anger,
and then a long period of depression, and a sense of hopelessness. It is upon this background that the
spirit begins to reveals the values of love, compassion, hope, and faith. And though it requires many
years to eradicate the negative emotional response to the loss of a loved one, the spirit triumphs and
soon the values and meanings extracted from the experience of loss are held securely within the soul
of the individual awaiting the time for testing and trial. As times progresses, these values and
meanings deepen.
The next arm of this training began during her young adult life where she married a military man
who served in the military for over 20 years. Thus she knew all the ins and outs of military affairs.
She knew how to initiate, follow through, and complete the cycle of retrieving a military person from
duty during a family emergency. She was an expert at it. No wonder she was able to carry out this
function without a hitch.
The third arm of her training involved the test and trial of the previous acquired values. This came
in the form of the death of her own husband two years previously. This was a somewhat protracted
experience, for the breath of death took many years for it to finally complete its work. Her own
husband had died from Leukemia, a form of blood cancer involving the white blood cells of the
body. This was a difficult experience and a painful one as she went through the chemotherapy
treatment with him on several occasions, each time the remission becoming shorter and shorter,
leaving him weaker and weaker. But the day finally arrived when the chemotherapy failed and her
husband slipped into a coma and died. Those values of love, compassion, hope, and faith held her
tightly, and she did not stumble, passing the test with flying colors. Naturally she grieved, but this
was transcended by glorious spiritual values and meanings. To her soul, death was no more than the
dissolution of the material body.
Finally combined and unified factual knowledge and spiritual insight received the opportunity to
function and it functioned and did so gloriously, demonstrating the supremacy of spiritual values
over the material. The wake will be tonight, and the funeral will be tomorrow and of course this
emissary of mercy will be there to comfort this bereaved family, showing them the Father's goodness,
and his mercy, and perhaps just perhaps, this magnificent display of spirit will find a reception in the
soul of this family, and one day in the not so distant future these values and meanings will come
forth from them to comfort another.
This concludes today's message on understanding the display of the Father's love and mercy. We
hope you find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
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By Dr. James Perry
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The Display of the Father's Love and Mercy
