Compassion

Martin Collins, reminding us that God's love does not shield the believer from sickness, pain, sorrow, or death, focuses on several scriptural contexts in which Jesus shed tears and expressed grief. Though no wimpy sentimentalist, Jesus chose to experience the often disrupting vicissitudes of human life, having the capacity to feel empathy. Like all of us, He felt weariness and exhaustion, grew in wisdom and knowledge, and felt anger and indignation. The short clause, "Jesus wept," conveys both His anger at the consequences of sin and His compassion for those who suffered, prompting observers to say, "He loved." Jesus was made like us so He could empathize with our weaknesses, qualifying Him to be our High Priest and Mediator. Unlike the religion of Ancient Greece, or Judaism, God's true religion shows God as having the capacity to feel, to empathize, and to have love for others. God meticulously keeps track of our tears and promises to wipe them away in the fullness of time. But, before God transforms our tears of sorrow into tears of joy, He commands that His called-out ones be the same kind of living sacrifices as were Moses, the apostle Paul, and Jesus Christ.

John Reiss:  The author of Hebrews writes in Hebrews 13:1, "Let brotherly love continue." Brotherly love should be a significant part of a Christian's life, and the Bible instructs us how we can show this love for one another.

Clyde Finklea, referring to a book by billionaire J. Paul Getty, How To Be Rich, which discusses being a rich person (that is, living as one) rather than becoming a rich person, asks the question, "How can God's People Be Christian?" Christ, at Luke 14:26, wherein He says His people must hate their own family and their own carnal self in order to acquire eternal life, establishes the benchmark. The Prophet Micah, at Micah 6:8, provides a formula for being a Christian: 1.) Doing justly, 2.) Exercising mercy and 3.) Walking humbly. Together, these demand a total commitment (a living sacrifice) on the part of God's called-out ones rather than a token contribution. The Greatest Commandment (the Shema), demanding that we love God with all our heart, mind, and soul—and our neighbor as ourselves, requires that we bring every thought into captivity, submitting to God's purpose for us. We must couple compassion (the motive for serving others) with mercy (the act of serving others), having both the desire and the ability to love our neighbors, emulating the practice of the Good Samaritan. When we walk humbly, there is no room for self-righteousness, but instead we learn to forgive others, realizing that Christ forgave His tormenters. The narrow gate is not an easy one, but it is the only one which leads to eternal life. It behooves God's called-out ones to "be" Christians—living God's way of life. That is far more challenging than becoming Christians.

Charles Whitaker, referencing game theory, reminds us that the failure to make a decision in fact represents a decision. Consequences—even of inaction—are inevitable; everything matters. The act of "passing" in a poker game effects all the players' chances to win. Among God's people, the consequences of indifference to service become particularly burdensome in the current context of geographic scattering and corporate fragmentation. Additionally, Christians who "sit out" opportunities to serve, becoming in effect couch potatoes, commit sins of omission which, if not repented of, lead to the Lake of Fire. Hence, service is a salvational issue; engagement with God's people is not an option, but a mandate; the Christian failing to gather with Christ becoming one who by default scatters with Satan. Hence, indifference is destructive; inaction is tantamount to active scattering. As the Parable of the Good Samaritan indicates, failure to act can endanger even the lives of others, a fact which illustrates why passive indifference and active hatred are not opposites. Rather, indifference is in fact a species of hatred. Old and New Testaments teach that God's people are to "open their hands" to others, as opportunity affords, playing the cards (talents) God has dealt us, not "passing," knowing that everything we do—or don't do—matters.

Ronny Graham, acknowledging that God has chosen the weak and base things of the world to confound the wise, analyzes the commonalities of heroes who have emerged from common people and who sacrifice their personal concerns for the greater good. We recognize first responders (policemen, firemen, and soldiers) who routinely risk their lives to help others. Irena Sendler, the brave woman who smuggled 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, Henry Erwin, scalded by a flare he pulled out of the failed bomber hatch, and Arland Williams Jr, who assisted in the saving of the survivors of a downed aircraft but who drowned before rescuers could reach him, all exemplify heroes. The Roman historian Plutarch identified compassion for others as the common link for all acts of heroism. Sympathetic compassion for others motivated Winston Churchill, Joseph, Jephthah, and most significantly, Our Savior Jesus Christ, who sacrificed His life to redeem humanity. We need to emulate our Elder Brother Jesus Christ, making the exercise of sacrificial compassion a daily activity.

John Reiss:  Having learned in Part One about biblical compassion, we can see no better example of it than the sacrifice our Savior made for us. ...

John Reiss:  The apostle Paul instructs us in Colossians 3:12 (New International Version), “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion." We all like to think that we are tender-hearted ...

John Ritenbaugh reiterates that political correctness is a kind of programmed conditioning, undertaken by leftist 'liberal' 'progressives' to convince people to override their common sense and the evidence of their five senses, coercing gullible people to ardently believe that a blue barn is flaming red while a flaming red barn is sky blue, or that evil is good and good is evil. 'Progressives' would have us believe that gender is a matter of choice, made possible by cutting appendages off and augmenting others by chemicals. 'Progressives' would have us believe that gun-free zones prevent violence. 'Progressives' would have us believe that the economy is robust and healthy when the national debt has never been higher and hopelessly out of control. 'Progressives' would have us believe that Black Lives Matter (an organization funded by hateful white billionaire and former Nazi-collaborator George Soros) seeks to protect black lives, when in reality it delights in massive black abortions, condones 500 black-on-black homicides in Chicago annually, but hysterically foments rage when any policeman wounds or shoots a black man under any circumstances. The proponents of Black Lives Matter want to brainwash the community to accept the fiction of police brutality, while enabling unscrupulous politicians to gain control of the inner cities as their domain. 'Progressives' may hypocritically denounce terrorists with black masks and scimitars, but graciously condone terrorists with white masks and scalpels who have murdered millions of innocent babies in the name of 'Women's rights.'

John Reiss:  Last month, a town hall meeting was held at my place of employment, and a minister opened the meeting with a story, which went something like this: A long time ago, a king traveling through his kingdom ...

Clyde Finklea, asking us what identifies a person as a true disciple of Christ, points to the command in John 13:34, commanding that the disciples love one another as Christ loved us—loving to the extent that He would give up His life. God is composed of love, as described in its many facets in Galatians 5:22 and I Corinthians 13. Two positive facets identified in I Corinthians are longsuffering (the opposite of retaliation and vengeance), as exemplified by David in his response to Saul, and kindness or compassion, as expressed by David to Jonathan's heir. As Christians, we must exercise longsuffering and kindness to all, including to those that have done ill to us. The only way we can be considered disciples of Christ is if we love one another with His standard.

Clyde Finklea, focusing on the concept of living a life that pleases God, as was exemplified by Enoch in Genesis 5:21, identifies seven qualities that enable us to live a life that pleases God. These seven qualities include 1.) faith and belief, 2.) righteousness, 3.) integrity, 4.) loving compassion toward others, 5.) bearing fruit, 6.) demonstrating humility (having no inflated ego), and 7.) commitment (a determination never to give up.) As Passover rapidly approaches, we must strive to inculcate these qualities into the fabric of our character.

Both God the Father and Jesus Christ have modeled how we are to love one another. After giving the pattern in the life of Jesus shown in the Gospels, we are instructed "to walk just as He walked. . . . He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him." ...

Jesus' resurrection of His friend Lazarus from the dead proved to be the final straw for the Jews who were trying to kill Him. After contrasting Jesus' weeping with those around Him, Martin Collins considers the diverse reactions of the witnesses to His great miracle, focusing on how it was a sign to them and us.

James Beaubelle, insisting that there is nothing passive in the way God deals with His people and His creation, asserts that the God of the Bible was and is actively involved in the lives of His people with the expectation that they become active also. The command to love our God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves cannot be carried out passively. It requires an active response on our part in living a life that strives towards righteousness within a relationship with God to build up a holy character that resembles our Elder Brother Jesus Christ—a character that must be developed over a lifetime preparing for service in God's Kingdom. Our entire history we can consider as the extension of God's compassion and mercy for our father Abraham, freed us from bondage of service to sin (symbolized by Egypt) into a covenant of voluntary service to God. The Egypt we encounter today is manifest in the form of bondage to our own human nature and bondage to the lures of the world. We are liberated from this bondage to participate in voluntary servitude to our God, becoming sons that serve God and do His will. We are given the motivation to serve God by the gift of the Holy Spirit and the attractiveness of the Father and Son, who are hard to resist; we do not want to disappoint them but want to please them. By imitating our Elder Brother Jesus Christ, though we cannot forgive other peoples'sins, but we can have compassion on them, rendering concrete acts of service to them like the Good Samaritan, who in contrast to the cruelty of the robbers and the cold indifference of the religious leaders, ministered to the poor victim's needs and extended his service to him by unselfishly hiring the innkeeper to care for him. As we, motivated by compassion, render service to the hurting and needy, we also serve Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father. Our compassion for the hurts of others must be turned into concrete deeds of service to God and our fellow man.

Austin Del Castillo maintains that the reason we are here is to learn our part in God's plan to reconcile the whole of mankind to Himself. We need to get to know God in order that we feel like Him, think like Him, and act like Him. Without Jesus Christ's atonement, we would be part of the walking dead. God forgives us more than once a day, renouncing His anger and absolving us from a payment of debt. In the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, we must compare ourselves to the servant who was forgiven 10,000 talents (approximately 200 million dollars), a debt far higher than anyone will ever owe to us. We are fellow incarcerated prisoners, both beholden to God through the very expensive sacrifice of Christ's blood. We are expected to forgive others as God has forgiven us. In Jesus' prayer the night of the Passover, He wasn't just acknowledging that He and the Father are one; He is also expressing the desire that we, His church (and eventually, all of mankind) also be one with them. Forgiveness is something we, like our Heavenly Father and Elder Brother, dispense daily. Lewis B. Smedes, Professor of theology at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, CA states, "To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." Forgiving and being forgiven are part of being a family, something that is not forced or coerced, but given freely from the heart. We cannot badger someone into forgiving us, otherwise it is not felt. If we set our minds to never forgive someone even if he is impossibly obnoxious, it erodes our compassion and tenderness, possibly keeping us from entering God's Kingdom. If someone asks us to forgive him, we have the power to dramatically change the world for good.

Clyde Finklea, reflecting on Joseph Felix's book Lord Have Murphy, a humorous analysis of Murphy's Law, asserts that it is impossible to become perfect without having mercy or compassion. The parable of the good Samaritan provided a exemplary model for developing compassion, beginning with sympathy and culminating in an action or concrete act of goodness. Mercy is an action, not merely a state of mind The command made by Jesus to become perfect includes showing compassion to love our enemies, relieving their miserable conditions. The Laodicean mindset is characterized by a deficit in merciful acts, forgetting the enormous debt their Savior had paid with His life. Whenever we forget Christ's sacrifice for our sins, we resemble the unmerciful servant, who, when he was absolved of a million dollar debt, acted harshly and mercilessly to a fellow servant who owed him a mere twenty dollars. We have received an immense measure of mercy; Christ wants us show compassion to our fellow man. Our marching orders are to walk humbly and to love justice and mercy. Whoever has a large share of the world's possessions, but shuts his charity off when he sees a fellow Christian in need, is blind to his spiritual nakedness.

Webster's American Dictionary defines determination as "a fixed purpose or intention." We can see a living example of this word by studying the life of one particular Paralympic athlete and learning some valuable lessons that we can apply to our Christian lives. ...

Richard T. Ritenbaugh:  Flipping channels on Wednesday night during a commercial break in the Giants-Cowboys football game, I landed on the local PBS station that was airing the speeches from the Democratic National Convention here in Charlotte. ...

Among the gospel writers, only Mark records Jesus' healing of the deaf-mute man (Mark 7:31-37) in any detail. His handicap, one that first-century medicine had few answers for, isolated him from society. Martin Collins explains that Christ's healing of the man's hearing and speech have spiritual counterparts from which we can learn valuable lessons.

John Ritenbaugh indicates that we are being fitted as lively stones into an already formed Kingdom, being conformed to the image of Christ, who has been designated as the Cornerstone. As God's future priests, becoming living sacrifices, we will constitute God's department of health, education, and welfare, serving and helping humanity. The Israel of God becomes God's firstborn, being set aside as a chosen generation to help the High Priest, Jesus Christ. This role as Christ's assistants is what we are being prepared for, a role which will call for rigorous discipline. This rigor will enable us to be totally transformed from the inside out, bringing about a renewal of our minds and a change of character. We are appointed on men's behalf to deal with things pertaining to God. We will become the link between men and God. We will offer sacrifice, largely consisting of intercessory prayer. We have to have compassion, sympathy, and empathy with mankind, realizing the repertoire of our own weaknesses. Like Christ, we must learn from the things we have suffered, making us able to aid those who have been tempted. God has hand-picked or chosen us as forerunners because He loved us; we dare not squander this precious calling of training for the Royal Priesthood. The more we know God, the stronger and more insightful we will get, enabling us to build one another up in Godly love, thinking with the mind of the Father and Jesus Christ, with His Law written in our hearts.

The feeding of the five thousand—a miracle attested in all four gospels—tells us far more than the fact that Jesus was a marvelous miracle-worker. Martin Collins shows that it also reveals Christ's compassion on those who hunger, as well as His ability to teach vital lessons to His disciples—lessons we, too, can learn.

In our interactions with others, it is easy to fall into the traps of judgmentalism, gossip, and unforgiveness. John Reid explores a better, more Christian option: mercy. It is time for us to overcome our natural, carnal reactions and implement patience and forbearance in our relationships.

Martin Collins, citing Ephesians 4:29-32, warns against corrupt, bitter, and wrathful communication, a practice which may grieve or attenuate God's Spirit. We have the tendency to nurse or harbor grievances and bitterness, souring our outlook on everything, creating a cynical or hardened mindset, focusing on the faults and blemishes in everything. Our bitterness grieves Jesus Christ. Wrath and clamor permanently injure others. As the African proverb reminds us, "The axe forgets, but the tree remembers." Evil speaking, slander, and malice must be expunged from a Christian's verbal repertoire. We displace evil-speaking by flooding our minds with kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness, cultivating an entirely new emerging personality, useful and helpful to others, emulating Jesus Christ. Driving out the evil must be followed by cultivating goodness and righteousness. Positivity cancels out negativity. An antidote to depression is to get our hearts tenderheartedly focused on someone else, showing mercy and compassion, after the manner of the Good Samaritan, as well as of our Elder Brother and our Heavenly Father. We need to forgive others as God has forgiven us.

The gospels present Jesus working the wonderful miracle of resurrection only three times in His ministry, one of which is the raising of the widow's son. Martin Collins dissects the episode, elucidating the depth of our Savior's compassion for others.

The healing of the centurion's servant is significant in that it is one of only two miracles that Jesus did for Gentiles, and He is especially taken with the Roman officer's faith. Martin Collins shows that, along with his faith, the centurion also shows great compassion and humility, so rare even among Israelites.

Martin Collins, reflecting on the tendency of society to prescribe drugs for every social malady, indicates that we often fail to see that the chastening we receive may be what God uses to sanctify us, preparing us as His spiritual children. When God starts a project, He finishes it; we must assiduously emulate that trait. If we are not receiving God's correction or chastisement, we should be alarmed. As Job was chastised by God, he learned submission and acquiescence, humility, silence, repentance, and that he had not seen the omnipotence of God. Chastisement focuses more on discipline and training than punishment. God uses circumstances such as financial loss or illness to steer us toward sanctification. Without godly chastisement, we may succumb to spiritual pride, self-confidence, self-satisfaction or smugness, but with godly chastisement, we attain humility, meekness, strength under control, and patience.

Philosophers and ethicists, steeped in humanism, shoot wide of the truth in answering, 'Who is my neighbor?' Charles Whitaker explains that the Bible reveals the answer to this big moral question, as well as providing sensible guidelines on the finer details of Christian charity.

Martin Collins asks what we can do to improve our manners or etiquette. Our manners express our personality, especially as they portray humility, courtesy, or gentleness. The apostle Paul indicts all of us as lacking in courtesy before we were called. Now we must display the work of salvation, involving the etiquette and courtesy shown in the behavior of our Savior. Before our calling we did not possess these traits. Afterward, we go through a process of sanctification to develop the fruit of God's Holy Spirit and go on to perfection. Good manners, etiquette, and character may be improved by 1) trying to understand the other person's point of view, 2) paying attention in the little things, 3) making sure we keep our commitments, 4) clarifying what our expectations are, 5) always showing personal integrity, 6) apologizing for failing to keep our word or letting another person down, 7) and showing unconditional love.

Most people understand the basic point of this well-known parable. The whole story describes working compassion as contrasted to selfishness. It also clarifies just who is our neighbor.

John Reid, contrasting the world's self-serving, lust-driven "way of get" (mistakenly called love) with God's example of sacrifice and way of outgoing concern, concludes that what the world needs now is the agape love modeled by the Father and Jesus Christ. We are called to take on the very nature of God, to put on the love of God that casts out all fear. Our goal is to take on the likeness of Jesus Christ, developing His character, thereby reflecting the true love of God. If we have lost our first love, we need to rekindle it by ardently keeping God's Commandments, demonstrating both love for God (the first four) and love for mankind (the last six). Attaining God's nature and love requires that we keep His commandments. Of all the spiritual gifts we could ever hope to attain, the love of God surpasses all of them. Love is the way God lives throughout eternity.

Offenses and sins against us are unfortunately common. Jesus teaches us how to deal with them in this parable, focusing on our attitude of forgiveness because of being forgiven ourselves.

Mercy is a virtue that has gone out of vogue lately, though it is much admired. Jesus, however, places it among the most vital His followers should possess. John Ritenbaugh explains this often misunderstood beatitude.

The fifth fruit of the Spirit, kindness, reflects God's loving actions toward us. We in turn must learn to bestow kindness on others.

Focusing upon the rising tide of societal incivility, Richard Ritenbaugh warns that discourtesy and ugly in-your-face attitudes (fruits of the flesh) have also manifested themselves in the greater church of God. These disgusting works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) are exactly the opposite of what God expects of us- the opposite of Agape love. Good manners (minor morals or the small change of virtue) are the fundamentals of love for others and love for God. Unfortunately, good manners and courtesy do not come naturally, but have to be learned and continually practiced. The common denominator of etiquette is to esteem others more and making ourselves less. When we show courtesy to others, we imitate God.

John Ritenbaugh warns us against blaming our sins on something other than ourselves. God holds us personally responsible for our part in any sin (James 1: 12-16). Joseph's example proves that even the most difficult temptation can be resisted and overcome, though this skill must be developed incrementally. Joseph's early preparation gave him the ability to make the best out of any situation. The conclusion of Joseph's story shows a remarkable metamorphosis in his brothers—from hardness of heart to softness and compassion. Like Christ, Joseph's integrity and steadfastness provided the conditions for his brothers' repentance and eventual reconciliation.

John Ritenbaugh affirms that Jesus Christ's sinlessness was not the result of being a programmed automaton, but instead as a result of volition or choice—actively struggling against carnal pulls and temptations, enabling Him to fully empathize and have compassion on those tempted in like manner. He experienced exactly the same kind of temptations and suffering we experience, qualifying Him for the role of High Priest, bridge-builder between man and God, the same role for which members of God's called-out Family are also qualifying. Like our Elder Brother, we must learn righteous judgment by continually exercising our spiritual muscle, practicing making choices, distinguishing right from wrong, but building godly character and spiritual maturity through the enabling power of God's Holy Spirit.