The Heart of God Towards the Poor and SufferingSample

Yesterday we looked at the definition of compassion and the example that Jesus gave us in Mark 6. We discovered that compassion is an action; it means literally “to suffer with.” It’s not enough to just feel bad for someone, but it’s vital to do something about it. A beautiful example of this is the well-known story of the Good Samaritan.

It wasn’t the priest or the Levite in their self-righteousness that ministered to the needs of the broken man, but the Samaritan who saw the need, had compassion, and did everything he could to help alleviate the suffering of the man on the road.

It’s important for the Church, for the body of believers on the the Earth to truly understand and get inside of them the reality of compassion in order to reach this hurting world. Unless we are willing to physically do something and act, there will be many in our spheres of influence who will perhaps never truly experience the love of Christ.

Compassion will require much from us. It will be uncomfortable, messy, difficult and inconvenient. However, it will have incredible value in the Kingdom of God. Henry Nouwen describes compassion, “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

Are you willing to suffer with someone; to sacrifice and give of what you have so that someone else might gain?