We Need To Show Compassion!

Can you remember a time in your life when you felt sad, or discomforted, and someone came up to you to try to make you feel better?

Maybe when you were a child you were outside riding your bike when you crashed into something and fell over, skinning your knees and elbows. As the tears began to well up in your eyes because of the pain, someone came up to you and held you, and led you into the house to get a bandage. Do you know what kind of quality this person showed you? They showed you compassion.

Compassion is deep awareness of the suffering of another, coupled with the wish to relieve it.

Some synonyms are empathy, mercy, pity, or tenderheartedness.

It is a very nice feeling to have someone comfort you isn’t it? To know that someone else cares about you and wants to help ease your suffering. We all go through times in life when we need some love, and compassion is what we need to be filled with towards others.

1 Peter 3:8  “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:”

When a baby is just a couple months old and they are hungry, the only way for them to communicate is to cry and scream until they get some milk. Compassion will cause a parent to get up in the middle of the night to give their baby a bottle of milk.

Throughout the Gospels we can find many instances where people had come up to Jesus, seeking to be healed. They were suffering from disease and afflictions, and when they came to Jesus He “was moved with compassion” towards the people and healed them. He saw their needs and He helped them.

The opposite of compassion would be someone who is “hard hearted” or emotionless. Someone with a “stone-face” who doesn’t show emotion or care about others when they are clearly in need of help or comfort. The Levite and the priest that passed by the injured man in the parable of the Good Samaritan were of this type. They saw someone badly hurt and in need of assistance, but did nothing. They had the ability and opportunity to help, but they didn’t.

The apostle John wrote that if someone has the comforts of the world, plenty of food, clothing, etc, but they see someone in need, and they do nothing to help them, how are they showing the love that Christ has shown?

1 John 3:17  “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”

Compassion is love for your neighbor. Seeing someone in need and you are able to help them, and you do help them. Jesus saw that we needed help. We needed a way to be rid of our sins, but we couldn’t do it by ourselves. Struggling under the massive weight of our sins, we were “bogged” down and unable to achieve complete forgiveness. Jesus saw this, and His love for us caused Him to come down to our level, and die to save us from our sins.  That is compassion.

Galatians 6:2  “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

Love and compassion for others is what this next passage of scripture is about. It is a perfect passage that shows what compassion is.

Matthew 25:34-46  “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”

We could never do anything so incredible as what Jesus did for us, but we need to do as much as we can to show our love towards others. When we see someone sad we need to try to comfort them. When we see someone sick, we need to take care of them. We need to show compassion!

In Christ,

Andrew

We can be found on your web browser by searching, tlkjbc where you can find our diaries distributed through various platforms. We are not associated, nor affiliated with any other religious groups. You can get our entire podcast feeds directly, along with transcripts at tlkjbc.com or I suppose that you could find us somewhere up here, in the Great Northern Minnesota woods.