Caring Converted Into Action = Compassion

What Did Jesus Do?

…and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
Mark 6.34

There is caring, and then there is compassion. We can care a great deal about the people of Haiti who are homeless, and without adequate clothing and food as a result of the terrible earthquake, but we lack compassion if we never convert our caring to action to relieve their suffering, and our caring amounts to little.

I would imagine that most of us care about such problems as illiteracy, but unless we actually commit ourselves to help address the issue, we shouldn’t be surprised, and have little room to complain, that the number of adults who cannot read or write continues to climb. Then there are the lost. Within a radius of a mile of wherever we are when we read this it is likely that there are dozens of people who have never received Jesus as their Savior and Lord. But without doing something to reach the lost it would be hard to make a case that we actually care very much that without Christ they are doomed to destruction and eternal suffering.

Jesus cared. And Christ’s caring was compassionate in that it constantly compelled him to act. I rather imagine that the eager compassion of the Son might have led him more than once to ask the Father, “Now, do I go down now to save them?” only to have God the Father say, “Not yet, Son. The time will come soon enough.” When the time came for his earthly ministry Jesus looked with compassionate eyes upon the sick and suffering, the lame and the lost, the poor and the perishing, and he cared enough to act.

There was the time Jesus had sought to provide for a little “R&R” for his apostles after he had sent them out two by two on a preaching and healing mission. (Mark 6.7-13) Crossing Galilee in a boat, Jesus and the twelve headed for a lonely place of solitude, only to discover as soon as they stepped out of the boat that the desperate crowds had observed their course across the water and run ahead of them to be waiting on the desolate shore! (Mark 6.30-33) Did Jesus have Peter and the others turnabout and shove off again? Not at all, he had compassion on the crowd that looked like nothing so much as a flock of sheep wandering in a wilderness without a shepherd.

Recognizing how hungry the people were, Jesus fed them, first spiritual food for their souls, then bread and fish for their bodies. He certainly would never have responded to the one need and ignored the other; his great compassion caused him to put his care for all the people into direct and concrete action.

It must be noted that all the cares of Jesus directly related to his concern for the kingdom of God, and his desire to help as many as he could find and follow the one path into the kingdom. Where does concern for the kingdom fit on our personal list of cares? And, we all need to be honest here, claiming concern for the kingdom of God and for the lost as a top priority, while doing little or nothing about it, reveals a definite lack of compassion. If we never convert caring to action it is necessary to ask just how much we really care. Pray. Donate. Volunteer. Go and make a difference in someone’s life. Caring that compels always produces acts of compassion. That’s what Jesus did.


Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4