Do you show mercy? Mark 3-4

Mark 3:5 (NASBStr)

After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He *said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Jesus was angry with the religious leaders of the day.   One might think that "anger" is not becoming the Man of God.   But, the next line tells us the reason for the anger.  He was angry because they had hardened their heart toward the things mention by Micah in 6:8 of his book.   Micah was one of the last prophets the nation and its leaders would have heard from, prior to Christ.   The Prophet had told them that their religiosity was not important to God.  The most important thing to God, according to the Prophet, was as follows:

Micah 6:8 (NASBStr)

He has told you, O man, what is good;

And what does the Lord require of you

But to do justice, to love kindness,

And to walk humbly with your God?

The word "kindness" in the above text is acting with mercy.  Before Jesus and the religious men of the day was a man who had a "withered" hand.  The man had come to Jesus because he believed in His power to heal.   He was willing to cast his complete trust on the Man of God.   But, according to the Pharisees, he had dared to come on the wrong day: The Sabbath.  The religious leaders of the day objected to doing anything on the sabbath.   Christ was angered at that.  Asking them if was lawful or unlawful to do good or evil on the Sabbath they did what most evil-power-hungry-leaders do: They kept silent. Uncommitted!!   It angered Jesus because that silence showed the hardness of their heart.   This is in harmony with Paul's "Be angry, but sin not" (Ephesians 4:6).   Righteous anger for hardness of heart is justified by God.   People who harden their heart to acts of mercy are evil on the inside.  They have not be regenerated by the Spirit.   You can test your faith in Christ by the mercy He pours out into your heart.