DOES COMPASSION MOTIVATE YOU?

What drives you to action? What causes tears swell up in your eyes? What sends you to your knees in prayer? When real concern for others, when compassion born out of experience becomes the answer to these questions there is no limit to the effectiveness of prayer, nor to what we may find you doing.

Moses had an incredible experience with God, one where God revealed Himself to Moses in a supernatural way and audibly told him about His character. Moses asked to see God’s glory and God’s response is most evident in the following verses:

Exodus 33:19   The Lord replied, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will call out my name, Yahweh, before you. For I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose

Exodus 34:6   The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.

God’s unending mercy and compassion for people is evident throughout the Bible. God is love and His love, His presence and His grace are available even when bad stuff happens. One important believers must do is tap into that mercy and grace to help in time of need. Along with that is to be a conduit of God’s love for people, to experience His compassion and do the right thing with it.

Where do we get that and how do we do it? Let’s look at Jesus and see. Jesus experienced being a real flesh and blood person who experienced the best and the worst of what people go through as human beings.

Hebrews 4:15   For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Hebrews 5:2   Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity.

Look at how this played out during His brief time on the planet. I've listed many examples from Matthew and Luke that show the lover of our souls motivated to action by His compassion for people.

Mark 6:34   And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.

Matthew 20:34   So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes. And immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him.

Matthew 14:14   And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

Matthew 15:32  Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way. (Then He miraculously fed 4,000 men plus the women and children with five small loaves of bread and a few fish.)

Matthew 20:34   So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him

Luke 7:12-14   A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The young man who had died was a widow’s only son, and a large crowd from the village was with her.

13    When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. “Don’t cry!” he said.

14   Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Young man,” he said, “I tell you, get up.”

15   Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk! And Jesus gave him back to his mother.

Those of you who read these blogs often know that I have a passion to bring the message from God’s heart to yours. This implies that we need to take the His Word to heart and let Him change us. You see, the Christian is blessed to be able to allow this compassion, so much an integral part of every other aspect of God’s character, to become integral to our character as well, to our churches and exposed to our communities.

1 Peter 3:8   Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;

Romans 15:1   We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

Hebrews 10:23   Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised ;)

24   And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:

Hebrews 6:10   For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do.

It has often been said that the more you pray for someone the more you will love them. What happens in your head and heart when you consider someone? Ask yourself when you see something lacking in another believer if you are seeing what you do because it is lacking in you? The greatest provocation (motivational thing) is to lead by example as Jesus did in those verses form Matthew and Luke quoted above. Be a follower of Jesus and you will be a leader of others to Him. 

WORKPLACE GRACE

God’s abundant grace is abundantly available for every situation.

If you’re blessed there is a button on the bottom to SHARE on Face Book.  Your comments in the box below can also add to the world wide blessing once approved. 

Did you ever look back and wonder, “How did I do that?” or say to yourself, “What just happened? That impossible circumstance just worked out and I don’t know how.” I find myself frequently recounting, often in the course of my work, something that just happened that was definitely more than coincidence with, “That had to have been the Lord!!” Those were not coincidences if you belong to Jesus, they were acts of Divine intervention, freely given, though undeserved, by our loving Heavenly Father. I’ll share some things that should stir up your memories that will help you see that that thing that happened must have been the Lord’s doing. Click the Add Comment at the bottom of the blog so that readers all over the world can also be blessed by what God has done in your life.

Back in the mid to late 1970’s I was a machinist, running large computer controlled machining centers. Back then, machine shops were a far cry from what they are today concerning safety and efficiency, and I thank the Lord to have been a part of that progression. There was a man who ran the machine next to mine who was the kind of person many tried to avoid. He would be ornery, contentious, complaining and OH DID HE STINK! There were different theories as to the cause of that smell but I doubt anyone really knew. We worked in close quarters and the Lord just gave me a love for Herb, compassion and the desire to seem him get to know Jesus. Co-workers would ask me how I could stand that smell. My response was simple, “God just put a Holy Ghost close pin on my nose and really was not bothered by it.” Herb and I worked there for years and somehow I just about always was gracious to him. People who really know me fully understand that that had to have been a gift of special grace because I was not always that way with people. I left that shop in 1985 and heard later on that Herb had given His life to Jesus and was a very changed man. Herb went on to be with the Lord at a young age but you can be sure I’ll see Him in Heaven and thank him for being used of God to build character in my life. 

My next job was teaching in a trade school for a couple of years. I was training people for jobs as CNC operators who could read prints, inspect their work, program the machines and more importantly, how to make it in a machine shop. I had a student who had been tool makers and welders, a homemaker who had never handled a hand drill and everything in between. The only things they had in common was that they were unemployed and were accepted into a Federally funded program. You could add to that list that they had to deal with me. I am not a very good actor but somehow I managed to role play a spectrum of supervisory styles. One week they would be lead by a mean, tyrannical shouting in your face BOSS and the next week an easygoing, caring instructor. After four months with me they were ready for anything. My ability to prepare them in such a way had to have been a supernatural gifting, a work of the grace of God in and through me. After two years the school was shut down because there were no jobs in the Syracuse, NY area for people with these skills. God then extended His grace to me to get through my 1^st dose of being unemployed.

More recently, in fact just a few months ago I experienced a miracle of God’s protection from what could have been a very serious industrial accident. The specifics are confidential but suffice it to say that the Angel of the Lord pushed me away from a very dangerous thing that should not have been airborne toward my mid-section. Jesus so graciously kept me from severe injury and everyone around was told, in no uncertain terms, that the Lord had sent an angel to protect me. To God be the glory, and thanks forever. 

John Wright Follett, one of my favorite Christian authors, wrote an amazing chapter in the book BROKEN BREAD called “Trouble is a Servant.” That someone put on the web as a .txt file, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/follette/broken.txt is truely a blessing. You’ll find the whole book there and you can download it free as a .pdf file too. Every trial, every temptation, every adverse situation we face is our opportunity to experience God’s grace. He gave us the grace to receive enough faith to get saved in the first place, and everything else in the Christian life happens the same way, by grace Through Faith.

Rom. 5:3   We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 

   4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 

   5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. (NLT)

Eph.2:8   God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 

9    Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 

10    For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (NLT)

Having a hard time dealing with that boss or coworker? Are the stresses of the workplace wearing you down? Do you think you have too much, or to little work to do? God’s abundant grace is abundantly available for every situation. 

Add your comments, your story below. It won’t go public until I publish it and I am eager to let the world hear your story of God’s grace in your workplace.