When I do those spiritual gift tests based on Romans 12:6-8, I come up short in “acts of mercy” normally dubbed COMPASSION. God gives all these gifts to His people with the intention that they are used to build up the Body of Christ. I’m to recognize my dominant gifts and use them, but not neglect those in which I am least gifted. Therefore, I’m to be compassionate when that is what He wants from me. In both Hebrew and Greek, this means having “a deep awareness of and sympathy for another’s suffering.”
Compassion and sympathy do not always feel good. I once put a clipping on my refrigerator of a child suffering from horrid disease, his little face twisted in agony. I cried every time I looked at it, partly for his pain and partly because I felt helpless to alleviate it. This Covid pandemic is having the same effect.
God’s compassion sees our pain, but unlike me, He is not helpless. If action is to be taken, He knows what to do and when to do it. Many passages that describe how God shows compassion, translate the same word into other words like “mercy” or “pity” or “comfort” — suggesting emotions that I can feel but have trouble expressing. But God expresses His compassion in many ways.
In the OT, many passages describe God’s people asking for His compassion, either because of sin committed or deep distress in their lives. Sometimes God answers with a caveat; if they obey Him, he will show mercy. For instance, their request — and His response:
“Forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them”. . . . “For if you return to the Lord, your brothers and your children will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.” (1 Kings 8:50 and 2 Chronicles 30:9)
In both Old and New Testaments, compassion is associated with the gut (bowel) meaning a strong feeling of tenderness. One dictionary puts it like this: “compassion; by extension, the womb (as cherishing the fetus); by implication. a maiden: bowels, compassion, damsel, tender love, great, tender, mercy, pity, womb.” This suggests to me that the world needs to realize that God’s compassion is quite different from many attitudes toward an unborn fetus. Instead, His compassion is concerned with life, preserving life, forgiving sin and considering the needs of humanity.
The psalms are filled with verses about God’s love and steadfast mercy, with appeals to His compassion to blot out sin. This is part of God’s goodness: “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” (Psalm 145:9)
Even when under the chastening hand of God, His compassion eventually draws back that His people might walk with Him again:
For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer. (Isaiah 54:7–8)
Our appeal to God is not based on deserving His mercy, but because He is merciful. He is a God of compassion:
O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. (Daniel 9:18)
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY: Because of God’s compassionate nature, I must allow Him to use me and to change my thinking so I am like Him, not like the world of self-centeredness that I live in. He says.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1–2)
My compassion can be refreshed and built up as I find joy and comfort in the love of God expressed through other Christians.
For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. (Philemon 7)
In this verse, “hearts” is the same word usually translated “compassion” and this goes both ways. God wants me to be compassionate also, encouraging others to have God’s empathy for those who suffer.
No comments:
Post a Comment