I have been meditating much on the compassion of the Lord.
How passionately, over the top He loves us. There is a word used in the New
Testament , splagchnon, it means "moved with compassion", referring to How Jesus
sees us, and how the father in the prodigal son saw his lost son. I heard about
this word in a sermon last week. It means to be moved in your inward parts,
especially the heart, lungs, live and kidneys, the nobler organs thought to be
the seat of love. In Philippian 1:8 it uses this word to refer to God’s tender
mercies towards us. I wonder, how often are we moved with heart stopping,
breath taking, gut wrenching love and compassion for another, the kind that
drives us to reach out to another, the kind that comes with action. God’s love
is not a passive little foo-foo feeling, it is a gut wrenching love that moves
Him to reach out and rescue us.
As I have meditated on this word this week it has taken me
back to Isaiah 59, (an amazing passage, from which I think that Paul was
drawing his illustration of the Armor of God in Ephesians 6, which implies a
little bit different interpretation of that passage than is normally
given, but that is a thought for another
day.) In Isaiah 59 it begins with the introduction:
1“The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you. His ears aren’t too deaf to hear your cry for help.2 But your sins have separated you from your God. They have caused him to turn his face away from you. So he won’t listen to you.”
It goes on to detail how God sees us, how we are so full of
sin and violence, evil with no peace and justice. The people respond in vs 9 ff
with a confession of their sin.
11“We want the Lord to do what is fair and save us. But he doesn’t do it.We long for him to set us free. But the time for that seems far away.12 That’s because we’ve done so many things he considers wrong. Our sins prove that we are guilty.
God responds to this with:
The Lord sees that people aren’t treating others fairly.
That makes him unhappy.
16 He sees that there is no one who helps his people.
He is shocked that no one stands up for them.
So he will use his own powerful arm to save them.
He has the strength to do it because he is holy.
17 He will put the armor of holiness on his chest.
He’ll put the helmet of salvation on his head.”
And He finishes by making a covenant to give His Spirit and
His Words
I am astonished and delighted by this, that God, takes up
His armor on our behalf! He does what no one else will do, or is even able to
do. He executes justice and mercy, He does it with great compassion and much
emotion, not from afar off, like moving a chess piece, but with His hands, as
going into battle for His people and for right.
Do I have this energy to fight for the oppressed, to comfort
the broken hearted to strive with people in their mess and their troubles?
Sometimes, but then I grow weary, I get tired of being all caught up with all
that emotion. It is exhausting to deal
with others stuff. It is even exhausting to deal with my own stuff. I shut
down, I disengage from life, I turn to idle pursues so I do not have to feel so
deeply, hurt so much… or even, be at risk to be hurt.
In Galatians 6 it says “Do not grow weary of doing what is
good…” but we do, I do. God doesn’t though.
Isaiah 40:28
"Do you not know? Have you not heard?The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earthDoes not become weary or tired.His understanding is inscrutable.29 He gives strength to the weary,And to him who lacks might He increases power.Though youths grow weary and tired,And vigorous young men stumble badly,31 Yet those who]wait for the LordWill gain new strength;They will mount up with wings like eagles,They will run and not get tired,They will walk and not become weary."
Lord help me to walk in your strength, Your love, Your
compassion, to not fear pain, to not run from being gut wrenched over someone
elses troubles, to run in your love, to mount up on your wings, to live mercy
and compassion, to truly love as You love me.
No comments:
Post a Comment