"BE MERCIFUL UNTO ME, O LORD." Our God is ever ready to hear our cry and to forgive. He delights in showing mercy, is slow to anger, and "ready to pardon." This is always a fact, and it should always be believed by us. It should also be daily kept before our minds, that we may seek, expect, and enjoy a daily pardon. The Lord is never indisposed, or backward to pardon a believing, penitent, confessing sinner. But He is ever faithful to His word, and just to the merit of His Son, in pardoning everyone who applies in the Saviour's name. "Ready to forgive!" The goodness of His nature is such that He devised a way in which He could honourably pardon the vilest transgressor; and though this cost Him the life of His only begotten and well beloved Son, He freely gave Him up, to show that He was a God "ready to pardon." Without atonement, pardon would have been impossible; but through the atonement of Jesus, God can easily, completely, and daily pardon the greatest sinners. What He can do, He will do and He does do. And tonight, He is "ready to forgive" the sins of this day, and of every previous day: to forgive us, and to do it this very moment. Blessed truth!

For Meditation:
Believing let us lift our eye
To Him who liveth and hath died;
One look will lift our souls on high,
And God pronounce us justified.