Compassion

Compassion. To suffer with. Feeling of distress and pity for the suffering or misfortune of another often including the desire to alleviate it. It goes hand in hand with empathy.
First, we were created in the likeness of God right? Second, God called us to love him with all our heart mind and soul. It’s the greatest commandment. So if God made us like him and Jesus is his son, we should be like him and we should love him with all we have; then ultimately we should be striving to live like Jesus.

Well we know this already. We’re supposed to be like Jesus. Jesus was the most compassionate of them all. The most loving. The most brutal. The most honest. The most perfect. Yet all still human like us. So then why does God demand us to be compassionate even if we sometimes can’t see the change it makes in the world? Maybe the best way to see God work is to try to see others the way He sees them.

1 Peter 3:8 “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and humble mind”. If you go on to read verse 9 it calls us to put it into action: “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing”.
BLESS. It goes hand in hand with compassion. When we are loving God genuinely, then we ought to be loving others genuinely. The good Samaritan blessed the hurt guy. Even if the hurt guy never acknowledged it or if he in turn got beat up as well, he still did the right thing. With no hidden motives. He saw the suffering and wanted to fix it even if he would suffer too.
Compassion is about caring for someone even when they’ve done wrong and then wanting to help or suffer alongside them. This goes for our family, our friends, our children, our bosses, the homeless, the murderers, everyone. Jesus didn’t pick and choose which friends he wanted to show compassion to. He saw the need and met it. Period. End of story.

None of us are the same, but we are still called to love each other. Especially working in ministry with other believers and having influence, we are ALL called as Christians to love each other as brothers and sisters and “put on” godly attitudes and actions. God desires to free people from their suffering. If we are made in the likeness of God, then we need to turn our focus on becoming great at the great commandment: loving God= loving others= compassion.

written by Kaity