(Much of this was first brought together for me and learned from Rex Andrews.)
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Jesus told them, "Go and learn what this means: 'I will (I desire) mercy and not sacrifice.'" Then they went out and plotted how to kill him. A little later Jesus says, "If you had learned what this means: 'I will mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent."
This tells very simply what the will of God is: MERCY. God's purpose is fulfilled when we do His will. "Those that are led of the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." As we seek Him for His leading and how to walk in it, we need not wonder what His will is since He revealed it so clearly. Meet the need. Do the mercy.
In Hebrew it is chesed, "covenantal love, love in action, the ardor to fulfill what is lacking," and it is translated "mercy." In Greek it is charis, "grace, the result from having been filled full," and in both translations of the New Testament into Hebrew, chesed was used to translate charis, for which English has "grace."
Jesus says if we only greet our friends in the market place, "What grace have you?" "Your are to be good and kind (that is, merciful) to your enemies." The middle beatitude, upon which they all hang and on which they all turn, is mercy. Mercy fulfills the law and prophets. Of, "The weightier matters of the law (or, Torah:) judgment, mercy, and faith," the middle one is mercy. All the sins listed in Romans 128-31 are begun with, or titled, "unrighteousness;" and concluding the list, or its summary is, "un-merciful." Compare and you will see the antidote to all those sins is mercy!
When asked how to have life eonian, life to the extent it is manifested in this period of time, Jesus pointed to the two commandments to love God and to love your neighbor. Answering again because he wanted to justify himself, the response was, "But, who is my neighbor?" Jesus then gave us what we call "The Parable of the Good Samaritan," the man whose doctrine was off, where he was coming from and his social standing among the people of God was just not right. Those whose score on such matters was over the top avoided the robbed and beat up man in the ditch; but, the Samaritan did the mercy to the man in need. Jesus says, "Go and do likewise."
At the heart of the world is the nation Israel. On Zion, the "the navel of the whole earth," is the temple of God. In the center of that temple, in the holiest place of all, at the center of all, ruling over all, is the Word, Who is the Image and Glory of God, resting on THE MERCY THRONE.
God's purpose is the restoration of that Image in the Earth, the raising up of it into glory to inherit all things, and in the light of its rising all things are revealed.
