Mercy and Grace, what is the difference?

Greetings, dear community @steemchurch today I am going to talk about two terms that we usually confuse: mercy and grace. Many times these terms are confused, since they have similar meanings, but grace and mercy do not represent the same. Mercy is the indulgence that the Creator has towards us, that is He does not punish us as our sins deserve. Whereas, Grace is the blessings that the Creator gives us, even if we are not worthy of these blessings.

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When we speak of mercy we are doing it from the perspective of liberation that represents being judged, whereas when we speak about grace we are referring to the kindness that extends to those who do not deserve it.

To better understand what mercy means we will resort to several verses from some books of the Holy Scriptures. In the verses of Ecclesiastes (7:20), Romans (3:23) and John (1:18):

Certainly there is no righteous man on earth, who does good and never sins. (Ecclesiastes 7:20 :)

for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23)

God never saw him; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. (John 1:18)

They tell us that we are all sinners, so we all deserve death, as Romans (6:23) tells us "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" . And therefore, we must be in eternal damnation in the lake of fire, as we see in Revelation (20: 12-15):

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before God; and the books were opened, and another book was opened, the> which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by the things that were written in the books, according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and Hades delivered the dead that were in them; and they were judged according to their works.
And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
And he who was not found inscribed in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Considering all of the above, we must understand that every day that we live is an act of the mercy of the Creator. If for some reason He left aside this mercy, we would all be condemned to eternity. David in Psalms (51: 1-2) expresses:

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your mercy;
According to the multitude of your mercies, it erases my rebellions.
Wash me more and more of my wickedness,
And cleanse me of my sin. "

However, the plea that is made to the infinite mercy of God is to ask him to have mercy on us, because if he gives us the judgment we deserve we would be condemned, and therefore he asks, begs for forgiveness, a forgiveness that we have not won.

Because of our behavior, we do not deserve the mercy of God. He does not owe us anything, since all the good we experience is the result of divine grace. In Ephesians (2: 5) we realize this: "Even while We were dead in sin, He gave us life together with Christ by grace you are saved"

The Creator has given us His infinite grace, gives us good things that we do not deserve for our sins, our disobedience, and that we could never win, but He loves us and in His infinite grace gives us kindness and love. God in his infinite wisdom grants grace to all humanity.

We all deserve judgment, but if we recognize Jesus Christ as our Savior, we will be accepting his mercy and grace. Our response to such magnanimous behavior should be one of adoration and gratitude. As he tells us in Hebrews (4:16), "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, in order to obtain mercy and find grace for the opportune help".