Hearts of Compassion

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges we face as Christians is to have compassionate hearts. When we look at the world around us, we see too many haters. There are those who hate Truth. There are those who hate God. There are those that hate the very thought of Christianity. They even hate on each other. Many simply hate the very things that Christianity promotes (i.e., goodness, kindness, relying on God, assembling with the saints, having pure speech, abstaining from ungodly environments and influences).

Because hate is so common outside of the church, it is especially devastating when found in the church. An emotion at the opposite end of this spectrum is compassion. Notice what Paul says in one of his epistles:

“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. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:12-14).

These are qualities that go a long way in making us the compassionate Christians God desires us to be. Compassion is the ability to have a tender response to the sufferings of another person. And this includes exercising tender hearts toward those whose actions cause their own hardships. Haven’t we all been there? Compassion allows us to share the suffering or feelings of one another because of our common humanity, but more importantly because of our common faith. Paul said in Romans 12, to rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep.

Jesus gives us the perfect example of compassion and being genuinely concerned about those who needed spiritual and moral direction in their lives:

“And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest'” (Matthew 9:35-38).

In so many ways, these people were spiritually confused because they didn’t know who to follow. Jesus didn’t get offended. He didn’t take it personal and throw His hands up and say, “Well forget these people then! Just let them get what they deserve!” He sought to reach out to and love them despite their shortcomings. I cannot help but think that if we had the same attitude toward those who reject us or Christianity, maybe we would make a lot more progress in winning them over.

Hating is easy to do. But it takes a great deal of spiritual maturity and wisdom to kindly deal with people in a compassionate way. May we always make the effort to care! People are hurting. And they need a shoulder to lean on. They need to know they are valued and cared for, no matter how deep a hole they may have dug for themselves. People need help in dealing with devastating events in their lives. Our compassion and efforts to reach out to them is our opportunity to walk with Jesus (1 John 1:7), as well as imitate Him (1 Corinthians 11:1).