Grace: A 5 Day Devotionalنموونە

E. Grace is Empathy 

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another and to be able to do it from that person’s frame of reference. 

Empathy is understanding another person's life, circumstances, and walking together with them with whatever they are facing. 

For some, that alone may make empathy a hard thing to fully comprehend. For others, it may make empathy sound impossible. 

Because when you think about it, can a person really know how it feels to walk in someone else’s life,  skin or shoes? 

Is it at all possible to take on the burden, affliction, or grief of someone if you have never personally experienced or lived what they have experienced or lived through? 

Again, we look to Jesus as our shining example. 

2 Corinthians 5:18, 21 KJV: "And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Romans 5:8 ESV: But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Isaiah 53: 3-6 KJV: "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken,  smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Because of Jesus’ amazing capacity to bear the burdens of the entire world - we also can be empathetic to others. 

Ephesians 2:8-9: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of  God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."

Keeping this in mind I encourage you to be more aware of the GRACE you give with the understanding that you have been the recipient of Grace and will need to receive it again and again and again throughout your life. 

GRACE is the 

Gift of 

Responsibility 

And Accountability shown  

With Compassion 

And Empathy 

Practice GRACE. Go through the workweek and choose one letter a day. It can be in any order but make one of the five components or traits of GRACE your focus for that day and be intentional to find an opportunity to walk, talk and live out that trait all day long. 

From the simplest to the most complex thing in your day there is always a way to be more giving, to walk in responsibility, to live with accountability for yourself and others, and with compassion and empathy. 

2 Corinthians 13:14 NKJV: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen."