April 2, 2022

Matthew 9: 36 (NIV)

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus was merciful to people regardless of who they were, what they’d done, or whether they liked him.*

Love is something you do. Jesus demonstrated love over and over. He told us how to love and what love looks like. Paul wrote about love in First Corinthians chapter 13 and gave us some insights not only on what love is, but what love isn’t. Not one word about feelings. This is good for me because I’m all about the doing and not so much about the feeling.

But if love is something you do, then compassion is its feeling twin. Jesus loved but he also felt. He looked at the crowds that followed him and he didn’t just see their selfishness, their lives all messed up because of their own bad choices, their lack of purpose. He felt their pain and their hopelessness. We might say that his heart broke for them, but the Jews considered the bowels to be the “seat of sympathy and the tender passions”* so they might say that Jesus felt for them in his gut. Pity is a shallow, anemic emotion compared to what Jesus feels.

When Jesus looks out over the crowd, he isn’t overwhelmed by the volume of desperation he sees; he feels compassion for each hurting soul on an individual basis. He knows their stories and their excuses; he knows what it takes to make them whole again.

Do you feel overwhelmed by the size of the suffering crowd? Do what Jesus did – have compassion on them, one soul at a time. Learn each person's story and help them write a happy ending to their story by showing them Jesus.

We often think we could lay down our life in a dramatic way to show our love for others. But God often calls us to lay down our lives little by little - in small coins instead of one large payment - but it is laying down our lives nonetheless.*