Inspiration & Worship
Eyes of Love I
t’s easy to feel compassion for a helpless animal, a small child or someone who is sick. Our emotion of sympathy helps us to do the right thing. But it’s much more difficult to treat people we don’t like with compassion. Maybe they repel us with their bad habits or annoying personalities. It’s easier to view them as the world does than through the eyes of God. Yet God alone is the judge of people. He forgave us, in all our sinful ugliness, through Jesus Christ on the cross. His compassion wasn’t based upon our attractiveness; it was based upon His goodness. We’re without excuse when we refuse to extend compassion to others. We’re to love because God first loved us. Period. Throughout the Old Testament, God commanded His people to lavish compassion on one another. When they resisted, they paid a price. Zechariah wrote, “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’ “But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.’” (Zechariah 7:9-11 NIV) After the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus was completed, God’s mercy to us was irreversible. Does this mean we have license to ignore His will? To the contrary, God expects us to recognize the compassion shown to us and, in gratitude, to pay it forward. He expects us to view people through His eyes of love. Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. I John 2:6. To be compassionate may be the truest test of strength and surest road to inner peace. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” (John 14:27a) ❚ --Janine Pumilia
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Smart Living Fort Wayne
July 2022 • II
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