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• Illustration: Two men related to a murder victim (Deborah Thornton) took radically different paths when dealing with the execution of the murderer—one of bitterness and hate, the other of forgiveness and mercy.
• Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy" (Matthew 5:7).
• Christians need to treat people how they would like to be treated.

• Compassion is an attitude of the heart, something that we feel.
• Mercy adds loving action to our compassion.
  -Illustration: The main character in the play My Fair Lady longs for her suitor to combine his words of love with loving actions.
  Transition: There's no doubt that we live in a world where it's so easy for us to become callused and indifferent, so how does a heart become merciful? Where does mercy come from?

• Mercy is an outgrowth of the preceding beatitudes.
• The key to becoming a merciful person is to first become a broken person, to realize our own need for mercy and cry out to God.
• We develop a merciful nature as we receive mercy from God.
  -Illustration: A quote from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice highlights the "twice-blessed" quality of mercy.
  -Illustration: Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan epitomizes mercy.
  Transition: But in my view, we don't struggle with the meaning of mercy inasmuch as we struggle with the motivation for why we ought to be merciful to others.

• Like Jonah, we often want the benefits of receiving mercy without giving it ourselves.
• If we fail to be merciful to others, God will not show mercy to us.
  -Illustration: Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant demonstrates God's reciprocity in terms of mercy (Matthew 18:21-35).
• If we fail to show mercy to others, we will be tortured by our own bitterness and anger.

• Illustration: Continuing the story from the Introduction, Deborah Thornton's brother was tortured by his own rage until he experienced Christ's forgiveness, and was able to eventually forgive his sister's murderer.