The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Full of Compassion"
"Who will be the most glad in that day when 'God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes?' It will not be those who shed them."
Scripture beautifully affirms our Lord as "the God of all comfort" (II Corinthians 1:3). This originates in another sublime Scriptural declaration…
"But Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth" (Psalm 86:15).
Devoted and involved caring for His creation fills the heart of God. "The Lord is good to all, and His tendermercies are over all His works" (Psalm 145:9). Human sorrow and suffering matter to our Heavenly Father. Our sins, whether individual or collective, do not prevent His grieving for what those sins have brought to our experience. In His righteousness, He must act against that which jeopardizes the well being of all He has made. However, in no way does this preclude the sorrow He knows regarding the consequences of unrighteousness in the world. A heart "full of compassion" cannot view or feel any other way.
We must be sure to perceive the Lord in this light of His entering into our sorrows and pains. He does not care from afar. "Compassion" means far more than that. The incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ confirms this blessed truth of "tendermercies… over all His works." Our Savior lived an earthly lifetime as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3). The sorrows to which Isaiah refers were not the Lord's own sadnesses. "He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows" (Isaiah 53:4; emphasis added). The Lord Jesus rather sorrowed in our sorrows, and grieved in our griefs. To see the ravages of sin upon the creation He made must have daily pierced His heart no less than the spear plunged therein on the cross. "But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd" (Matthew 9:36).
Who will be the most glad in that day when "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes?" (Revelation 21:4). It will not be those who shed them. It will be the One who feels our present sorrows and griefs far more than do we ourselves. Understanding this about our Lord will greatly encourage us to "cast all your care upon Him" (I Peter 5:7). It will also fill our hearts with compassion for others as God's caring becomes our caring - "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Corinthians 3:18). "The God of all comfort… full of compassion." Few truths about our Lord more reveal who He is, and more lead us to approach Him with our cares and the cares of others.
"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
(Galatians 6:2)
Weekly Memory Verse
As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness.
(Psalm 17:15)
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