Moved with Compassion!
Meditation for the week of January 20, 2013
And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick. (Matthew 14:14)
According to Dictionary.com, compassion is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. The Lord had compassion on the multitudes and was able to alleviate their suffering. He healed their sick. In our day when there are so many friends and acquaintances that have untimely sicknesses it would be great to be able to heal them. When the Lord was here, He didn’t heal everyone; but He did heal everyone that came to Him or that was brought to Him requesting healing. He proved Himself to be the Son of God by his ability to heal. He proved himself to the Son of Man by His compassion. Even now as our Great High Priest, He is touched by the feelings of our infirmities according to Hebrews 4:15.
I usually think of the Lord Jesus as being full of compassion in the new testament but I tend to think of the Jehovah of the old testament as being more judgmental. I have therefore been pleasantly surprised to find the number of places that God was “full of compassion” in the old testament. I personally believe that God would rather show compassion than judge sin. But in a practical way, God has always tried to preserve his own people of faith by judging the sin of unbelievers so that believers will not be caught up in the desire of unbelievers to worship other gods. These gods are not gods at all, but they are man-made idols that encourage people to cater to the lusts of their flesh.
If God is compassionate, why does He not manifest His ability to heal today? I believe that He does. Every cold and or flu that we get is healed by the Lord if it is healed. Broken bones may be set by doctors but only the Lord can mend the broken bone. When the Psalmist says, He heals all my diseases in Psalm 103:3, every disease and illness that the Psalmist had experienced to that present time had been healed by God. Doctors can aid in the healing process, but only God can truly heal–even today. The Lord didn’t heal every disease and affliction when He was here on earth because there is an overriding principle in the Bible that physical sin brings physical death. So even those who were healed and some who were raised from the dead ultimately died. They all had a grave at the end of their lives. When God doesn’t heal today, it may be because of His compassion. I believe he uses disease and death as a means of reminding us that that sin is real, eternity is forever, and that we need to be ready to meet God when we die. He has shown His compassion to us by providing a righteous way to put away our sins and then by using disease and death to remind us of our need to prepare NOW to meet Him. I believe death often occurs because the Lord does care, and often the only sermons we will listen to are the ones preached by the deaths of our friends and loved ones. Satan brought death into the world in order to defeat God and to destroy His creation. However, God has been able to use death to bring many of us to a saving faith in the death of the Lord Jesus.
We shy away from talking about death and hell and punishment for the sin of rejecting God’s compassionate sacrifice for our sins. But God does not shy away from preaching what we do not want to face. He reminds us every time someone we know dies that “and as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation (Hebrews 9:27-28).”
I believe God does care and He does have compassion or pity on those of us who are marred by sin. Sometimes He shows that compassion by healing the sick. Sometimes He shows that compassion by not healing the sick so that those who are still alive have to think about their own sin and their ultimate eternal destiny. He would have all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). Sometimes it takes a little pain now to save us from an eternity of pain.
Compassion is one of the characteristics of the Lord Jesus. Would that it would be the characteristic of all of us who claim to be Christians or followers of Christ. In a day when there is a lot of hatred and division and grievous sin in society, the light at the end of the tunnel is the compassion of our Lord. We who claim to be His followers, who claim to be saved, who claim to be “born again,” need to have compassion on the multitudes as well.
Bruce Collins