What does it mean to have true compassion? I’ve been talking about having passion for the lost over the past couple of blogs. About as believers we have a duty, a responsibility to be the Church of God and reach out to the lost. There are people all around us who are dying and going to Hell and we are sitting in our little fortresses having our “worship services.” Is that what God is wanting us to do? Is that why Jesus came and died?
I was recently reminded of the story of the Good Samaritan that is found in Luke 10:25. Jesus is being tested by a lawyer and so Jesus talks about the man who travelled from Jerusalem to Jericho. While he was on the road he was mugged and left half dead. Now you all know the story, but let me just remind you a little bit. Just by chance a certain priest came down that road, and when he saw the man he passed by on the other side. Then a Levite came and did the same thing. But a certain Samaritan saw him and he had compassion on him and bandaged his wounds, poured oil and wine, and set him on his animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him. On the next day when he departed he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper and said to him, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.” Jesus asked the lawyer, “Which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” The lawyer replied, “The one who showed mercy on him.” Jesus said, “God and do likewise.”
The thing that we need to realize as believers, from this very familiar story, is that we have a man who was beaten and robbed and left to die on the side of the road. Then there were two religious men, a Pharisee and a Levite, who were very busy doing religious duties, maybe on their way to church, or to fulfill some sort of religious function. However, by virtue of their Jewish heritage they should have been the ones that should’ve stopped to help this man. However, who stopped? A Samaritan; who was the man that we know that should not have stopped, by virtue of the fact that he was a Samaritan. Yet he crossed the road and he went and helped the man.
When you really start to think about this story, or when I really started to think about this story, I began to discover that in all of my busyness there are many people (spiritually metaphorically speaking) lying on the side of the road that I was just walking on by, because I was so busy. I start to ask, “Lord, how is it going to fit? How is this going to happen? Surely that has to be somebody else’s concern. I understand that we don’t want to get involved. Because I know that involvement means “TIME.” Involvement costs us of our talent or of our treasure. I honestly think a reason why many churches are not growing, or many churches are not being reached like they could be is because we Christians, often just do not want to get involved. I mean, who has time for more involvement? We have such busy lives and such busy schedules and we have such balance and order; why would we want in any way to hinder that? But, I discovered the Samaritan, he had compassion in v. 33 and then it resonated, it would leave me. Read the words, “he went to him.” I have watched the World Hunger commercials, I have watched the Jerry Lewis telethons, I’ve been moved by all those stories. My emotions are moved with the Gospel for Asia videos. We can sit and watch all those stories and hear so many more. But an emotional reaction is not the same as true compassion. I’m sure that the two religious guys had emotional reactions, but they didn’t have compassion. True compassion crosses the road.
I guess what I’m asking is, “Are you willing to cross the road?” I know that it can be scary. The enemy will do all he can to keep you from crossing the road. He’ll tell you, “Don’t take the risk, don’t step out and do this, don’t cross the road.” But I want to share with you 2 Timothy 1:7 “God didn’t give us a cowardly spirit but a spirit of power, love, and good judgment.” Fear cripples and fear immobilizes us and God wants to take His church to places we have not yet even thought of by powers we didn’t even know existed. We cannot live safe, we cannot live tame, we cannot live predictable. We have got to go into darkness, and to go into darkness that means we have just got to understand that “Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world” and we are going to make a difference in our generation. We somehow think as Christians, we have got to get risk averse. I don’t understand that. As believers, we should just understand there is nothing ultimately to be fearful of. We are not here forever; we are just passing through. Life is risky, you cannot avoid risk.
I have been sharing with you how Dawn and I met. When I asked her out on our first date. I had to take a risk. I had to take a risk to ask her out. It was a risk because she might say, “no.” We were really good friends and I didn’t want to lose that friendship. I didn’t have a whole lot of friends outside of church. I had a lot of church friends in our youth group and people that I grew up with, but outside of church I didn’t have to many. Dawn was one that I was really close with. I didn’t want to jeopardize that. I took that risk. Later I took another risk when I told her I loved her. What would her response be? Would she reject me? Would she tell me she loved me back? Would she freak out? (That’s what she did). It took a whole summer for her to recover from that one. However, the next Fall when we were back together she knew and I knew that we were meant to be together. So, on Sweetest Day I took another risk and asked her to marry me. She said yes and a year later we were married. What if I hadn’t taken those risks? What if I had just stayed on my side of the road? What if I had just stayed at my piano with my briefcase worrying about my schedule and my plans? I would have missed out on God’s plan for a helpmate for me in life.
You never know the blessings that are on the other side of the road until you cross the road. Reach out to the hurting and those that need the love of the Lord. I know it’s scary, but that is just from the enemy. Stand firm in the strength of the Lord. Let’s be the Church that God wants us to be, a powerful army that is taking back the souls that the enemy has taken.
Love to all,
Pastor Rob
