Receiving Mercy and Finding Grace for Timely Help

Hebrews 4:16—“Let us therefore come forward with boldness to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help.”
Note 2 on mercy says: “Both God’s mercy and God’s grace are the expression of His love. When we are in a pitiful condition, first God’s mercy reaches us and brings us into a situation in which He is able to favor us with His grace. Luke 15:20-24 tells us that when the father saw the prodigal son returning, he had compassion on him. That was mercy, which expressed the father’s love. Then the father clothed him with the best robe and fed him with the fattened calf. That was grace, which again manifested the father’s love. God’s mercy reaches farther and bridges the gap between us and God’s grace.


God’s mercy and grace are always available to us. However, we need to receive and find them by exercising our spirit to come to the throne of grace and contact our High Priest, who is touched with the feeling of all our weaknesses. By this word the writer of this book encouraged the wearied Hebrew believers to receive mercy and find grace for timely help, that they might be set upright (12:12).”
Cross-reference “b” on mercy directs us to these verses:
Romans 9:15: “For to Moses He says, ‘I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.’”
Romans 9:23: “In order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared unto glory.”