What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word property? Your mind may go to a piece of real estate. But you might also consider “a quality or trait belonging to an individual or thing”; for instance, the property of a certain type of wood provides insight about it. What is the wood’s texture? How prone is it to shrinkage? Is it water-resistant? In other words, what are the qualities of the wood you can depend on?
My wife and I attend a church with a traditional feel—corporate prayers, kneeling, Scripture reading, Communion. One of the prayers we pray each Sunday holds this phrase: “But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.” Not God’s real estate but a quality or trait belonging to God—to have mercy not just once in a while but always.
Nehemiah 9 gives us a picture of the Israelites gathered together, fasting, wrapped in sackcloth and covered in ashes (v. 1), confessing their sins and the sins of their ancestors (vv. 2, 16). They praised God for His patience in Israel’s history: “Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them” (v. 19). God could have put an end to them or abandoned them, but He never did. Why? That’s not God’s property, for He is “a gracious and merciful God” (v. 31).
In our prayers of confession, let’s include praise for that dependable property of God—His mercy.
What properties of God can you think of? How will You praise Him for those?
Thank you, Father, that Your property—Your character—is always to have mercy.
Nehemiah lived and wrote in the post-exilic era—the period when Israel was returning in stages from their seventy-year captivity in Babylon. He’d formerly been the cupbearer to the king and had been sent at his own request to oversee the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (see Nehemiah 1-2). In chapter 9, the people are called to confess and mourn over their sins as God’s chosen people (vv. 1-2). This call came following the reassertion of the law of Moses in chapter 8. In light of that law, the Levites and singers recounted the sins of the nation all the way back to the wilderness wanderings of their ancestors and their spiritual failures there. And they praised Him for His grace and mercy (9:31). He extends those things to us as well.
