Flee your sins. Whosoever confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy, a mercy which is rooted in the eternal nature of God. The Lord shall have mercy. God's mercy is His eternal compassion towards the objects of His election, in which He sees them in their misery, and in which He wills to bless them with His own self. Mercy has its power in the cross of Calvary, for there the mercy for sinners was seen in the giving of His Son to suffer the punishment that our sins deserved.
Mercy is the cause of our forgiveness, for it gained forgiveness.
For I have given My Son, Jesus Christ, to stand in your place, and actually to bear the penalty that your sins deserved so that you no longer bear that penalty. Now I account you as righteous. And if you ask why I have done this, it was out of mercy - mercy alone. That mercy, for us to taste it, for us to experience and enjoy it, is found in the way of confessing and forsaking our sins. That is what David meant when he prayed in Psalm 51 .