Post by MikeV on Feb 19, 2018 21:09:08 GMT
A Heart of Compassion
Craig von Buseck - Author
Jesus was having what we, in the natural, would call a ‘bad day’. He had just received the news that the person who most understood him, his cousin, the prophet John the Baptist, had been wantonly murdered to fulfill a shallow promise by a lustful king.
Jesus, though he was God, was also human, with human emotions. When he received this tragic news he just wanted to get away from it all. Matthew tells us:
When Jesus heard it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart--- (Matthew 14:13a, NKJV)
We’ve all been in that place where the cares of this world come over us like a tidal wave and all we want to do is to get away and be alone with God.
But the people would not let him have this time of mourning. Matthew tells us that
…when the people heard thereof, they followed Him on foot out of the cities. (Matthew 14:13b, NKJV)
Jesus could have sent Peter or James out to tell the masses that he was taking the day off. He could have asked John to let the throng know that he was ‘indisposed’. But the Bible tells us how Jesus responded:
Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them and healed their sick. (Matthew 14:14, NKJV)
Earlier Jesus revealed the heart of God to his disciples when he told them:
They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. (Matthew 9:12, NKJV)
Jesus made it clear that not only does God have compassion on sinners, but He desires that we have that same compassion. He wants to turn our hearts of stone – as a result of hurts, betrayal, cynicism, or selfishness – into hearts of flesh that long to love God and make His love known to the world … even when we’re having a ‘bad day’.
Today, as we go through our day, let’s take some time to ask that God would give us a heart of compassion for the lost. Let’s pray that through this heart of compassion we would be moved to become a part of what God is doing to take the gospel to hurting people around the world.
Pray that God’s love would be loosed in our hearts and that we would be moved with compassion – just as Jesus was – for sinners in need of a Savior.
This is the heart of God. By His grace, may it also be our heart.
12 For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. 13 He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. (Psalms 72:12-13, NKJV)
