Grace: A 5 Day DevotionalSample

C. Grace is Compassion 

The word compassion means recognizing the suffering of others and then taking action to help. 

Compassion also embodies a tangible expression of love for those who are suffering. 

Compassion and faith are similar in that both of them require works to really mean something: 

James 2 14-17: "What does it profit, my brethren if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."

Just as faith is an action word and not just a feeling, compassion is very much the same. Compassion without action is nothing more than a heightened emotional moment. It’s merely a mood. 

Feeling compassion for a person but doing nothing to help better that person’s life or circumstances make it just a word. 

Time and time again Jesus was and is our primary example of what compassion looks like. 

Matthew 15:32 Takes us to Jesus in ministry with multitudes of people following him from place to place for days as he taught. Jesus is moved with compassion and tells his disciples he didn’t want to send the people away because he saw their fatigue and hunger and knew that some would fall ill or die if he didn’t act on what he saw. 

This very familiar passage of scripture takes us to the miracle Christ performed of the fish and the loaves feeding thousands from the contents of one child’s “lunchbox”. 

True compassion requires a call to action. In context with where compassion falls inside of GRACE and how we can be better givers of the Grace we receive. 

Galatians 6:1: "Brothers, if a man is overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering yourself, lest you also be tempted."

Or in more contemporized terms, there but for the GRACE of GOD go you and I. 

Now with a freshly defined and clearer understanding of compassion, we understand better how it is that we are saved by GRACE through Faith and why it is impossible to extend GRACE without real compassion. 

GRACE is the 

Gift of 

Responsibility 

And Accountability shown  

With Compassion 

And Empathy