“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other” (Zechariah 7:9-10).
“Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble” (1 Peter 3:8).
When we consider the attributes of Christ that set Him apart, there are many things we could look at. His obedience to the Father in the things He did and said, His humility, His great love demonstrated at Calvary and throughout His ministry leading up to that eventful moment can all be discussed at length.
One of the aspects of Christ’s great love is in the way He demonstrated that love for the people He encountered on a daily basis. When asked by John the Baptist’s followers if Jesus was the Messiah or should they continue to seek Messiah elsewhere (a greater crisis of faith and doubt than that of Thomas after the resurrection, in my opinion), Jesus told them, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Matthew 11:4-5).
The reason the blind saw, the lame walked, the deaf heard and so on is because Jesus was fulfilling His role as Messiah, and part of that role was to show compassion on the masses: “When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36; cf. Mt. 14:14; 15:32; 20:34; Mark 1:41). Jesus’ compassion led Him to minister to the needs of the multitudes without complaint.
Because compassion is such an important part of Jesus’ ministry, it must be part of our life as well.
So what goes into being compassionate? I suggest four things to begin with.
- Become overwhelmed with God’s love
My first post discussed the very essence of the Gospel is God’s love for us and His expectation that we also love Him. There are so many verses that speak to this truth, but I want to focus on one. On the night Jesus knew He was betrayed, Judas had left the group as they celebrated the Passover. Now down to the loyal band that would be the first building blocks of the Church, Jesus said this:
“A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so must you love one another. By this all men will know you are My disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:24-25).
Jesus was very clear that His words were a commandment. He didn’t say, “Hey, guys, here’s a good idea . . . “ Nor did He say, “Let Me encourage you to love one another; I just think it would be a good idea.” No, He wanted there to be no doubt. This is a new commandment, and it’s coming from Christ, the Son of God. And to clarify any lingering question, He uses the phrase, “. . . so must you love one another.”
“That’s easy to say, but it’s another thing to do. I’m not Christ. I can’t do stuff like that.” A couple of things to address these objections.
First, nothing Jesus gives us to do is easy. If it was, it wouldn’t be called a discipline. Second, no one, on their own, can be Christ-like. It’s alien to our nature, and it can’t be done on our own. But, if a person confesses their sins and professes their belief in Jesus Christ, “. . . he is a new creation” (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17). Upon our confession of faith, we are automatically being transformed, filled by the Holy Spirit and God is already at work in us “to will and to act according to His good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). It is that Spirit within us that is beginning to bear fruit in us, and that fruit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (cf. Galatians 5:22-23). Notice that list, which is “fruit” singular, is headed with Christ-like love. So, the idea that we cannot love as Christ loves us is a fallacy. By the power and grace of God, we are able to love as Christ loved us.
Please realize that this love that is now in us needs to be nurtured and needs to grow. As is the case in so many things in our relationship with Christ, we need to make conscious choices to follow Him on a daily, sometimes an hourly basis. The Bible calls our new relationship in Christ as being “born again,” and no new baby is born immediately mature and capable of adult behavior, thought and emotions. We grow into it. So is the case with our spiritual development. The verse immediately before Philippians 2:13 tell us that we are to work out salvation with fear and trembling. The term “work out your salvation” is not telling us we have to work to gain salvation. Instead, it is a term that is similar to “work out your muscles” in a gym. We already have our muscles. Maybe they’re not very well developed, but they’re there and can be worked out. So is the same with our salvation. We are born again in Christ; salvation is the result. Now we work it out, putting it into practice. The Love of Christ is part of that practice, part of that work out.
And, as we consciously seek to develop that love, we discover that the love of God is starting to envelop us. We become overwhelmed with His love. And when that happens, our worldview drastically changes. Once the love of God overwhelms us, we no longer see the color of skin; we see the person Christ died for. No longer do we hear the accent or the foreign language; we hear the voice of one for whom Christ cared enough to go to Calvary. We no longer see the poor, the people different from us, the ones that take us out of our comfort zone. Instead, we see those who were made in God’s image, fallen by sin, but loved by the same compassion and heart that led Jesus up the road to Golgotha. We see them, in the overwhelming love of God, as people who, but for the grace of God, could have been us. “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Colossians 3:11).
Be overwhelmed by the love of God, and compassion will fill our hearts.
- Empathy
It’s one thing to have God’s love overwhelming us, but we also need to embrace the role of empathy that is always present in compassion. Jesus understood this when He gave us the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31). This verse is also found in Matthew 7:12, and it’s interesting how this same verse relates to the two passages where it’s found.
In both Luke and Matthew, the verse is found in passages that relate to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7; Luke 6:17-49). In Matthew’s version, the Golden Rule acts as a summary of the sermon, when Jesus called His followers to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. In Luke’s account, the Rule comes at the end of His teaching on loving our enemies (Luke 6:27-31). In both passages, it ties in well with what Jesus is saying.
The best way to live out the Golden Rule is to see through someone else’s eyes. By putting ourselves in that person’s place, we can understand what we would want done for us if we were that person. Then, if it is within our power, we do what we can to minister to the one in need. And we can always help someone in need.
The other day, my wife and I were coming out of the grocery store. I was pushing the cart full of groceries to our car, and was trying to get there before my wife so I could unlock the car and start loading groceries. As I was heading to the car, there was an older gentleman who was clearly having car troubles. I asked what was wrong, and he told me his battery was dead. I told him I didn’t have jumper cables and continued on to my car. When I looked back to talk to my wife, she had stopped where the man and his wife were. She was waiting with the couple, asking passersby if they had cables. Finally, we found someone who had cables. I brought my car up, we jumped his battery, which took more than a simple jump. The man with the cables called a mechanic buddy of his, and about the time we got the car running, the mechanic was there. We left the elderly couple in good hands.
My wife understood the Golden Rule better than I did on that day in that situation. I looked at the situation and realized I didn’t have the equipment needed. My wife saw the problem and recognized that she may not have cables, but she had a voice to advocate for the couple in need. Because of her willingness to advocate, they got the help they needed. She had placed herself in their shoes and lived out the Golden Rule.
That’s empathy, and that’s compassion.
- Willingness to step out of my comfort zone
The apostle Peter gets a lot of grief from people because of his outspokenness and his tendency to act before thinking it through. I think a lot of it is unjustified. I see Peter as someone so in love with Christ that he wanted to learn and experience as much of Him as he could. Sometimes, that led to rash statements, but sometimes it also led to deep testimonies of faith and revelation.
There is one passage, however, that I think does call Peter to task and is right to do so. In the book of Galatians, Paul is battling the heresy of Judaizers. They were ones who insisted that a true Christian will have faith in Jesus but will also adopt the Mosaic Law in all its forms. Paul argued that salvation is by grace alone, not from following the Law. In Galatians 2, Paul tells of a visit Peter made to the church at Antioch. Paul describes it this way:
“Before certain men came from James [the Jerusalem church], he [Peter] used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group” (Galatians 2:12).
It’s not unusual for people to fall back into their comfort zones. In the book of Acts, God had to use a dream revelation to teach Peter it was okay for him to go into a Gentile’s house. The idea of legal cleanliness had vanished with the coming of Christ. As a result of the dream and of the subsequent events, Peter became vocal in his support of the Gentile Christians before the Jerusalem Council. But here, he fell back into his comfort zone, out of fear according to the Bible.
It’s easy to be compassionate to people like me. I’m comfortable with these people. I know what the broad generalities are of such people, since they’re similar enough to me that we can find a way to relate at some level.
It’s the person who isn’t like me that needs the most compassion. They need patience, the benefit of the doubt, an open mind, a listening ear and an open heart.
- Believe God can use me to change my world
There is a difference between “the world” and “my world.” In “the world,” I have very little if any influence. The world consists of all the nations, all the people, all the things that make up the world.
“My world” is the place where I live and touch and connect with people and things around me. My world consists of all the things in “the world,” but on a smaller scale. “My world” consists of me, my family, my friends and acquaintances, those I encounter each day—it is that small part of “the world” where I can have an influence. Sometimes, God uses “my world” to change “the world”—think Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, the apostles and some of the disciples that came after them—but more often than not, my world is enough.
How can God use me to change my world? First, I must let Him change me. The way I do that is by offering myself to Him (cf. Romans 12:1-2). As I yield myself to Him, He works in me to transform me into His likeness, and I begin to see my world as He sees it. I hear the things He hears, and I begin to respond as He responds. The more accurate statement would be, as I yield myself to Him, I allow Him to live through me, and He touches my world in the way only He can.
This giving of ourselves to Him is a daily, conscious decision. Paul wrote to the Philippians: “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him . . .” (Philippians 3:8-9). The word we translate “consider” is an on-going event in Paul’s life. He is constantly, continually turning away from all that was important to him in order that he may gain the “power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His suffering” (Philippians 3:10). Throughout this passage, Paul speaks of the daily events of considering and striving to find a closer walk with the Son.
There are some people who think that God can’t use them, that they are unworthy and incapable of doing anything for the kingdom. First, we’re right to think that: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, He will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Secondly, we need to realize that, once we place ourselves in the control of the Holy Spirit, we are more than worthy: “For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of hands. For God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:6-7). Third, embrace the change that God makes in us: “I can do all things through Him Who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).
Faith in Christ includes the awareness that the saving grace of God makes us worthy to be used by Him for His glory and praise. We are a new creation, and as we yield ourselves to Him and His guidance, we find ourselves being used by Him to change our world.
Conclusion
When a person gives his or her life to Christ, it begins a process of surrender and sanctification. That sanctification includes reshaping us and our worldview. It opens our eyes to the areas of ministry around us, and the only way we can be useful to Him is through the compassion that comes from the Holy Spirit indwelling us and transforming us more and more each day into His likeness. Let the compassion of Christ be evident in us all, being wise as serpents and innocent as doves as we go about living our lives in obedience to His good will.
© 2017 Glynn Beaty