Living with Compassion

Just Between Us has compiled these articles on living with compassion for you to browse, ponder and hopefully, apply. May the Holy Spirit give you a heart for those who are hurting and in need of a Savior.

Our website content is FREE and our print magazine price has not been raised in over 20 years because of the generosity of people like you!  By supporting Just Between Us, you are helping encourage women across the street and around the world. Your subscriptions fuel this ministry and provide hope and encouragement to women in all seasons of life.  space Join us in being a blessing to women everywhere through your purchase of our quarterly PRINT magazine!

 

Twice in the gospel of Luke, Jesus is asked what one must do to inherit eternal life. In Luke 10:25-37, when Jesus reminds the man who asked Him the question that we are to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, this lawyer challenges Jesus to clarify who, exactly, is his neighbor. Jesus replies with the story of the Good Samaritan, in which a Jewish man is mugged and left half dead on the side of the road. Both a priest and an assistant to a priest (a Levite) walk by, ignoring the injured man. Then a Samaritan, a member of a social class despised by the Jews, binds the man’s wounds, takes him to an inn and pays the innkeeper to take care of him. Thus, Jesus demonstrated that loving one’s neighbor means showing compassion toward those who might, if the situation were reversed, not show compassion toward us.

space

Similarly, in Luke 18:18-30, a ruler in the synagogue asks Jesus the same question. Jesus reminds him of the Ten Commandments, to which the man replies that he has kept all of them faithfully. Jesus then challenges him to sell his possessions and distribute money to the poor. Again, His challenge to this pious man, and to us, is radical, selfless compassion.

space

Merriam-Webster defines compassion as “sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” In order to show compassion we must, first, be conscious of another’s distress and, second, have sympathy enough to alleviate it.

space

The apostle Paul wrote, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Cor. 1:3-4). Because God comforts us in our troubles, we should turn around and comfort others in “any trouble.”

space

Any trouble? Does that mean I am called to help someone who makes me uncomfortable? Like the homeless person I pass on my way to work every morning? Or the person whose sinful choices have led them down a path of pain and rejection? Or the person who simply looks different from me?

space

Jesus would answer with a resounding YES! If I learn nothing else from His parables, I need to take away the fact that Jesus calls us to radical, self-sacrificing compassion. This challenges me to examine how I spend my resources—my time, my talents, my treasure. Am I using them selfishly? Or am I using them to “comfort those in any trouble.”

space

"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for the, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matt. 9:36, ESV).