Compassion: 30 Days of HeartworkSample

God’s Rescue Strategy

HEART //  

In this world, the wealthy, powerful and privileged are honored and esteemed. In God’s Kingdom, it is exactly opposite. Over and over again in Scripture, God reminds His followers to honor and defend the weak and most vulnerable people in their world. He sees their suffering every day, and His heart is full of compassion for them.

Those who cannot fight or speak for themselves, those who seem to be nothing in this world, are special in His sight. Jesus urged us to treat our hungry and needy neighbors as royalty. He told us that what we do to the “least of these” we are doing to Him!

As Christians, we are the hands and feet of Jesus. We are to take what was purchased on the cross ─ the nature of Jesus Christ ─ and help transplant it into the hearts of people here on Earth. We are to behave not like this world, but like Jesus. ... When the world sees us, we are to look different because we are from another realm, a noble, brave and selfless realm that teaches us to spend ourselves for the weak. 

Psalm 140:12 says that God secures justice for the poor and upholds their cause, but Psalm 82 calls us in to do the work. He secures that justice through us. We are to defend the weak and the fatherless. We are to uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. We are to rescue the weak and the needy, to deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

He calls us out of indifference. In selfishness, we want to separate our hearts and our lives from the brokenness around us, but God calls us to see people and then to take what we see and meet it with compassionate action. God so loved the world that He GAVE (John 3:16). When we call ourselves by His name we are called to do the same. 

WORK //

Are you so sick of beans and rice yet? Isn’t it starting to sink in what it would be like if that was your ONLY option? It’s heartbreaking to realize this is reality for so many in our world. 

Today, as we wrap up our week on Compassion, write down your thoughts about your beans and rice experience and make a plan to serve at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter in your area or take a meal to a shut-in, if possible, sometime next week as we focus on Mission! 

Take a few minutes to think of yourself as the child of God you are: noble, brave and selfless. How could that perspective affect the way you treat others?