God’s mercy sustains us. The story of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 12 is a contest of wills between the Pharisees and the Son of God. They tried to defeat Jesus as he was demonstrating the plan of God’s mercy. The crux of the matter is in Jesus’ quotation from the prophet Hosea. If you understand Jesus’ message in these five words, then it can build your life. If you fail to absorb his meaning then you have just missed it.

The Bible Thought and the Bible reading for today are a continuous passage of a verbal contest between Jesus and the Pharisees about what actions are lawful on the Sabbath. It climaxed in the act of mercy, when the man with the shriveled hand was healed. The Pharisees were not able to defeat the plan of God. Our Lord quoted from the prophet Hosea, which says, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”(Hosea 6:6, NIV) The Sabbath healing of the man is recounted in Mark 3:1-6, where our Lord was “angry and was deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts” because they did not believe.

Jesus’ lesson on mercy is powerful. It is directly opposed to the ordinary human trait of self-righteousness. The Lord has put mercy above rules and customs.