Gift of Compassion
Have your own trials and sufferings affected your heart of compassion towards others? Do you struggle with feeling sorrow for the sufferings or trouble of others with very little inspiration to help?
Jesus warns us about having compassion for others when at the end of our lives we will be held accountable for how we treated others. He will proclaim you ‘blessed’ by His Father to inherit the kingdom prepared for you when you live a lifestyle of compassion towards others.
“For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prison and you came to Me.” (Matthew 25:35-38)
His followers wanted to know how and when they had done these acts to Jesus and He explained that “…as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me.” (Matthew 25:40)
For those who lacked compassion for the suffering Jesus ‘condemned’. In other words they would have no part of Jesus and were told to depart from Him, cursed into eternal fire that had been prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matthew 25:41) All because they refused to follow Jesus.
Our personal sufferings tend to turn our focus on ourselves and walking through it can block out others in their pain. Compassion is always available to us when we place our trust in God to see us through. This same compassion that we receive can be a blessing to others when extended. The world would truly be a better place.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3, 4)
loretta j. willis, author 