Living in Christ: Embracing the Life God Has for Youنموونە

To me, one of the most compelling marks of Jesus is His compassion. We see His compassion in several places in Scripture, most notably at the feedings of the 5000+ and 4000+.

Compassion is not just feeling strongly for someone, though. We tend to think of compassion as having pity, sympathy, or empathy, and that's part of it for sure. But compassion is more than those feelings, It's acting on those feelings. It's doing whatever we can, even if at great cost to ourselves, to help somebody in need.

What Jesus excelled at was doing this. In fact, he excelled at compassion so much that the writers of the Gospels kind of reserved a Greek word for him that was used only of him in the Gospels.

As we seek to live out our identity in Christ by imitating Jesus, we need to imitate his compassion. Our world is full of hurting, needy people, but that's too lofty and abstract. Our communities, our neighborhoods, perhaps even our homes have hurting, needy people in them.

To live like Jesus is to see these image bearers all around us, care deeply for them, and then do what we can to help them.

• In what ways do you see compassion lacking in the culture around you?
• What stirs compassion within you the most and how can you act on it?