Com·pas·sion

(noun)
1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. {Dictionary.com}

Compassion is the virtue of empathy for the suffering of others. It is regarded as a fundamental part of human love. {Wikipedia}

We as Americans are pretty awful at taking care of the poor and the hungry. We as Christians are even worse-considering that it’s our job and it’s not getting done.

James says that faith without works is dead. When we have saving faith but we don’t live it out, proclaim the Gospel, help the sick and homeless, care for widows and orphans- our faith becomes stagnant. It doesn’t matter one bit how sound your theology is, or how structured the liturgy of your church is if your faith is dead. If your faith is dead, how will you move mountains? How will God bless a church that has dead faith?

And when you stand before the face of God, that’s what will matter- whether you claimed to follow Christ and believe or whether you followed Christ, and lived out your faith as an expression of that belief. If faith is what saves you, will dead faith save you?  

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” {James 1:27}

Are you so caught up in yourself, so dead, that you drive by the homeless man on the sidewalk, making a snide remark about how he should work harder, and how he probably doesn’t even have a sick wife? I know I have, countless times. It’s so easy to become a judge and harden my heart.

{1 John 3:17} "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?"

It is hypocrisy to be a believer and to not have compassion on others, the way it is hypocrisy to be a believer and be unforgiving. God has had compassion on us and saved us, and it has changed our lives. It should change everything about our lives- spur us on to be radically compassionate to others because of the overwhelming compassion our Heavenly Father has demonstrated to us.

I was reading Isaiah 58 earlier this week, and I saw this:

6“Is not this the fast that I choose:

 to loose the bonds of wickedness,

to undo the straps of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

   and to break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

   and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover him,

   and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?”

“Bring the homeless poor into your house...” How many of us do that?
 
How many of us would stop and ask the homeless man home for dinner and a night in a soft bed? We don’t like to get our hands dirty, we don’t like to get involved, we don’t like to invest our time in unfortunate strangers...so we ignore our conscience and we drive.
Rolling down the window and asking, “Do you have a place to sleep tonight?” is....messy.

Compassion hurts because it is empathy- feeling the needs of others and their pain and then ACTING on it. Compassion is not a noun, as Dictionary.com would have us to believe. It is a verb. An action word. It is not a feeling, it is an action. Having compassion does not mean having an ache inside of you- it means having empathy that spurs you on to act and alleviate a need or the suffering or pain of another, the way that we avoid pain ourselves and go to great lengths to be comfortable. That is what true compassion is.


 
When we have compassion on others, we are blessed. Isaiah 58 continues by saying:
 

8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,

   and your healing shall spring up speedily;

your righteousness shall go before you;

   the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

   you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

If you take away the yoke from your midst,

   the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry

   and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

   and your gloom be as the noonday.

11 And the Lord will guide you continually

   and satisfy your desire in scorched places

   and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

   like a spring of water,

   whose waters do not fail.

When we are compassionate we are blessed beyond our imaginations.
We are like watered gardens, the Creator God guides us continually; he makes us strong. When we cry out God answers us and he is our rear guard, we are satisfied in him. Our gloom is as the noonday- what a picture.

And yet this is us, every day: 
 


Walking past. And even if you’re convinced in your heart that you would never walk past and turn away from this pitiful starving man, how many times a month do you walk past and turn away from this:


 

How many opportunities to be compassionate to we pass up, daily? Our apathy is sickening.

I am done walking past and I am done turning away.
I am ready to be radically compassionate, to pour myself out for the hungry; to satisfy the desire of the afflicted.

Are you?
 

34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 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, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

{Matthew 25:34-46}