Being compassionate

25
Sep

Luke 10:33:  But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion on him.

Compassion means understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it.  Jesus fits this description to a great extent.  All of us feel pity about something or someone and we just stop at that, but Jesus is the one who will do something beyond just feeling pity or kind.

The Samaritan had no business to feel compassionate for the wayside traveler who was a non-Samaritan, but it was his heart that was filled with such a compassion that it drove him to take that risky challenge of dressing his wounds and taking him to the inn.  This Samaritan here is figurative of Jesus.  He could have just sat in the heavens and enjoyed being worshipped and glorified by the angels and then punished the entire mankind who were living a life of sin with nobody to guide them to eternal life.  Instead, He just stepped out of heaven because He loved us and showed compassion for us by wilfully offering Himself on the cross so that we might be partakers of eternal life in heaven.  If the Samaritan in the story had not been compassionate, the traveler would have bled to death.   If the Good Samaritan, Jesus had not had compassion on us, all of us would have died in our sins and woken up in hell.

Let us learn to be compassionate with people.  Pray that God gives every one of us a heart of compassion, to go that extra mile and do good to people, save people from sin and lead them to life eternal.  Let us clean up their sinful wounds and let them taste a new life in Christ.