Can't get past Mercy...Praise God!

Okay so the title may imply that I am trying get beyond "mercy".  That is the complete opposite, I am so glad that in this life we can never out run mercy.  Still going slowly through 1 Peter in my personal studies, I found myself this morning resting on the middle part of 1 Peter 1:3, According to His great mercy...  Did you ever stop to think about that small word that carries such a weight of truth with it.  Mercy is the motive behind God's granting believers eternal life...thus sharing in the very life of the Father, Son, and Spirit.   Not to put a  downer on the word, but mercy focuses on our miserable sinful position.  Thus showing the beauty of God's compassion that is shown to those who are dead in their sins and our right rebellious toward God (which by the way includes all of us).  You see this is what mercy does, it shows and illuminates, our miserable condition while grace focuses on the guilt, or sin which caused that state.  One commentator has this to say of mercy: Divine mercy takes the sinner from misery to glory (a change of condition), and divine grace takes him from guilt to acquittal (a change of position).  You see mercy flows from the Lord's infinite compassion and free, abundant, limitless mercy.  Truly, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:3, God is the Father of mercies.  May we never get past mercy instead, may it always be at the forefront of all we do, ever evident in our daily lives.  Continually being poured out into our lives as we stumble through this life, until that day when mercy will lead to what Peter later writes, the goal...the salvation of your souls.