God of Compassion
Do you believe God is compassionate toward you?
Verse of the Day
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Today’s Devotional
As I am studying who God is, I keep asking Him to show me. “God, please show me who you are. Teach me what you want me to know about you today.” Yesterday, as I was reading Matthew 9, today’s verse jumped out to me. Jesus was traveling through the many towns and villages healing every kind of disease. As you can imagine, these kinds of results can draw a crowd. Jesus’ response to the crowds was compassion. I sensed that this verse was one answer to my prayer asking God to teach me who He is.
The definition of compassion is “the sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress with a desire to alleviate it”. If God is compassionate, then He is aware of every bit of my distress. He is not indifferent. And His desire is not for any of us to suffer. He knows we will suffer, but that is not His heart’s desire for us.
When I think about God’s compassion, I encounter something within me that doesn’t fully believe that’s who He is. There is a part of me that thinks that when I am in distress of any kind, God looks at me and says something like, “Well, I am very sorry that you are hurting but you’ve brought this misery on yourself.” And while it may be true that my choices are the cause for my current distress, the Bible shows me that my thinking is wrong about God’s attitude toward me. When Jesus was describing God’s Kingdom to us, He told a story of a very wayward, selfish young man. This story is better known as the Prodigal Son, and can be found in Luke 15.
Every bit of the prodigal son’s distress was of his own making. It was 100% his fault and his responsibility. But look what Jesus said about the father, whose money the son took and squandered. “So [the son] returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)
Even when every bit of my distress is a result of my own choices, God has compassion for me. All I have to do is turn around and head back in God’s direction. And even then, my expectations can be wrong about what awaits me as I return. (The son in this story thought he could return to be a slave.) As I return to my Father, he RUNS to me to embrace me. He is not shaming me or waiting to deliver a harsh and painful rebuke. He is a God of compassion.
I am honored and humbled that God is willing to show me how my beliefs don’t align with who He really is. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that God is willing to teach me who He is. He wants us to know Him. He wants to correct the things we misunderstand.
Our God is a God of compassion. He is compassionate toward us. His Word repeats this truth many times.
The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. (Psalm 103:13)
When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. “Don’t cry!” he said. (Luke 7:13)
“I will strengthen Judah and save Israel; I will restore them because of my compassion. It will be as though I had never rejected them, for I am the Lord their God, who will hear their cries. (Zechariah 10:6)
The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. (Exodus 34:6)
Do you believe that God is compassionate? Do you believe that He is compassionate toward you? He is telling us who He is. Father, we ask for your help to truly believe you.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
How has God shown compassion toward you in the past?
If you put yourself in the place of the prodigal son, and God in the place of the father in that story, how does God’s reaction toward you (as a wayward, returning child) sit with you?
What is God saying to you today about His compassion toward you?