I’m not always out looking for people to minister to.  Most of the time I just happen to find myself in front of someone who needs a touch from the Lord at a place I needed to be anyway.

In other words, I don’t usually go somewhere with the intention of ministering to anyone.  So, there are times in which the Lord interrupts whatever I happen to be doing so that he can highlight a person in need. 

There’ve been times I’ve been totally cool with being interrupted and other times I’ve been annoyed.  But there’s a constant:  When I truly see the person God wants to touch, I’m filled with compassion.

And it’s a choice I must make in every situation.  Am I gonna harden my heart and refuse to take the steps God’s asking me to take, or allow his love fill and compel me to action? 

Compassion and the miraculous go hand in hand.  Without it we won’t ever be the hands and feet of Jesus to the world around us.  It’s what ignited the heart of Jesus to move on behalf of people in need.

Charles Spurgeon said this in a message he preached in 1914:

"He was moved with compassion."—Matthew 9:36.

This said of Christ Jesus several times in the New Testament. The original word is a very remarkable one. It is not found in classic Greek. It is not found in the Septuagint. The fact is, it was a word coined by the evangelists themselves. They did not find one in the whole Greek language that suited their purpose, and therefore they had to make one. It is expressive of the deepest emotion; a striving of the bowels—a yearning of the innermost nature with pity.

As the dictionaries tell us— Ex intimis visceribus misericordia commoveor. I suppose that when our Saviour looked upon certain sights, those who watched him closely perceived that his internal agitation was very great, his emotions were very deep, and then his face betrayed it, his eyes gushed like founts with tears, and you saw that his big heart was ready to burst with pity for the sorrow upon which his eyes were gazing. He was moved with compassion. His whole nature was agitated with commiseration for the sufferers before him.

This is an amazing picture of the overwhelming love and compassion of Jesus.  And I want to be like him. 

I must discern anything in my life that would hijack my ability to be filled with compassion for the people around me.  You must as well.  Ask the Lord and he’ll show you.

Compassion will lead us to action.  It won’t look the same for everyone, but compassion will open our hearts in ways we haven’t experienced before. 

Blessings,

Jesse and Kara Birkey