05/28/2024
Today our devotional study has to do with compassion. I was reading E.M. Bounds' thoughts and had to read these words several times "It is no sin to feel the pain and realize the darkness on the path into which God leads us. It is only human to cry out against the pain and desolation of the hour." Compassion is a gift to those who pray; it helps us feel the pains and remorse of those who we pray for, and it makes us aware of the basic nature of human kind as we pray for the return of Christ. It is encouraging to know that Jesus is not without compassion. He felt all of the emotion that we feel and yet He was without sin.
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
Hebrews 4:15 KJV
We know that Jesus felt compassion because scripture specifically refers to it in several places. Listen to this verse as it describes this for us…
“But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.”
Matthew 9:36 KJV
The most wonderful part of compassion is in how it allows us to forgive more readily, and to enter into fervent prayer for others as if they were ourselves... We understand their plight and their desires through our compassion. We often refer to this as empathy, but empathy is just another synonym for compassion, just like pity, care, and concern. Compassion moves us to forgive.
“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
Colossians 3:12-13 ESV
Compassion is a gift and in the forgiveness that it allows us to more readily enter, it is saving our very souls. We know this because Jesus taught it in the Lord's Prayer. A requirement of being forgiven ourselves is that we first forgive…
“And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.”
Luke 11:4 KJV
So this morning as we pray let's ask that God increase our compassion for one another, and give us the motivation to act upon it. In this one loving gift we will find an abundance of heart to forgive others, and, in our forgiveness of them, we will become worthy of God’s forgiveness. Are we compassionate? Are we forgiving? Do we trust that we will be forgiven by God?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for looking at the compassion we have in our hearts, and the forgiveness we give to others as we exercise it. Thank you Lord for showing us your mercy, grace, and compassion as you forgive us too. Help us father to forgive as we should; completely, without remembering those things forgiven, and in a loving spirit that allows us to free ourselves of the animosity, hate, and bitterness that an unforgiving heart harbors within itself. Show us Lord how by doing this we can love like Jesus loves, and treat all people with caring and an earnest desire that they be saved. Let our compassion flourish and grow as we come to know you more each day, until at last it is complete, and we can readily forgive our enemies through it. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who was, and is, and is to come. Holy are you whose heart is compassionate, and who has loved us so much that you sent your Son Jesus among us to live, suffer, die, and be resurrected that we would be washed clean of sin, and freed from death. Bless us Father by tending to our compassion, and giving us a forgiving spirit cradled in the arms of your love itself. Pour your grace out over us through Jesus Christ, the vessel of your compassion, and the instrument of your love. See only Him when we stand before you in judgement, and make his love the reflection you see in our faces. Forgive us and find us worthy Lord as you look into our hearts and see the love of Christ nestled there. In these things we praise you, worship you, and call you our Father. Then, through our forgiveness we are forgiven, and you are glorified. All glory and honor are thus yours, and we will dine with you, and walk with you, forevermore.
Amen! Amen! Amen!
Rich Forbes