It's a well-worn cliché', but enduringly true: people will never care how much you know until they know how much you care. Truth without love and love without truth are opposite extremes; both equally useless. The priority is to love truth, and to love with truth.
"Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest'" (Mat 9:35-38 NASB)
The great proclaimer of the truth of the kingdom of God was also a compassionate healer. Supernaturally endowed with the Holy Spirit of God, Jesus provided powerful and convincing proof of the validity of the kingdom message through miraculous healings. But note it well: compassion was at the heart of both the message and the miracles. Nowhere is that compassion better describes than in verse 36: "Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd".
The two words, "distressed" and "dispirited", are spot-on accurate words to describe people of our day. The strain of life in our modern society has placed an incredible burden on the backs of most people, as evidenced by counseling sessions, pain medications, and antidepressants. And, the pervading pessimism at the prospects of a bleak economic future has left many dispirited. Never has there been a greater need for godly compassion.
The combination of compassion and the radically hopeful message of the kingdom of God was powerfully magnetic to the masses of people in the days of Jesus' earthly ministry. Nothing is more compelling than the knowledge that there is something better in the future, and compassionate deeds that validate that hopeful message.
We may not be gifted with the ability to touch and instantly heal diseases and physical defects, but we have been supernaturally empowered with compassion for a wide variety of loving deeds. And, most assuredly, we have been entrusted with the most positive and compelling good news of all - the truth of a renewed earth in the coming age, accompanied by the end of hatred, war, sickness, and death.
A great "harvest" of souls is available to compassionate proclaimers of the kingdom of God message. Those filled with compassion for the "distressed" and "dispirited" around them will find receptivity for the great good news of the kingdom.
May we live and move in the world today as those who love the truth, and love with the truth.
Steve
© 2010, Steve Taylor
"Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest'" (Mat 9:35-38 NASB)
The great proclaimer of the truth of the kingdom of God was also a compassionate healer. Supernaturally endowed with the Holy Spirit of God, Jesus provided powerful and convincing proof of the validity of the kingdom message through miraculous healings. But note it well: compassion was at the heart of both the message and the miracles. Nowhere is that compassion better describes than in verse 36: "Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd".
The two words, "distressed" and "dispirited", are spot-on accurate words to describe people of our day. The strain of life in our modern society has placed an incredible burden on the backs of most people, as evidenced by counseling sessions, pain medications, and antidepressants. And, the pervading pessimism at the prospects of a bleak economic future has left many dispirited. Never has there been a greater need for godly compassion.
The combination of compassion and the radically hopeful message of the kingdom of God was powerfully magnetic to the masses of people in the days of Jesus' earthly ministry. Nothing is more compelling than the knowledge that there is something better in the future, and compassionate deeds that validate that hopeful message.
We may not be gifted with the ability to touch and instantly heal diseases and physical defects, but we have been supernaturally empowered with compassion for a wide variety of loving deeds. And, most assuredly, we have been entrusted with the most positive and compelling good news of all - the truth of a renewed earth in the coming age, accompanied by the end of hatred, war, sickness, and death.
A great "harvest" of souls is available to compassionate proclaimers of the kingdom of God message. Those filled with compassion for the "distressed" and "dispirited" around them will find receptivity for the great good news of the kingdom.
May we live and move in the world today as those who love the truth, and love with the truth.
Steve
© 2010, Steve Taylor
posted by steve @ 8:31 AM
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