Mercy on All

As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
Romans 11:28-32
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Mercy on All
It is often hard to reconcile how a people who had been given so much by God could become so blind to His truth.  God led His people out of slavery, delivering them in miraculous ways, and watched after them time and time again. Yet now, when the promised Messiah comes, they refuse to recognize this truth. But God does not abandon His people nor break His promises He made to them. He still waits patiently to this day for their hardened hearts to be made alive through His Gospel. Here, Paul summarizes the overriding purpose of God’s mercy in chapters 9 through 11. All people, Jews and Gentiles, are imprisoned in their disobedience, with no possibility of escape unless God, in His mercy, releases them. Thanks be to God that His mercy is for all people. May He continue to show mercy to us as His Holy Spirit keeps us in the one true faith. May the cross of Christ continue to be in our sight, that we recognize God’s mercy on us through His Son.