With Passion

 

“The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.”

—James 5:11

Christ was full of compassion—“com - passion”: with passion. What a wonderful picture of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ as He faced the cross. How many times does Scripture indicate that Jesus had compassion? So often we find the phrase, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion.”¹ And, of course, compassion motivated Jesus, along with His love, to die in our place in such a horrifying manner.

In the Old Testament, compassion was symbolized by the Mercy Seat within the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle. Once a year, the High Priest entered this sacred place to offer a sacrifice for the sins of his people.

The Mercy Seat—the “hilasterion”—indicated to the people of God that He fully sympathized with their sin, their pain, and their sorrows. The New Testament Greek text of Romans 3:25 KJV reads:²

[Jesus Christ] Whom God set forth to be a propitiation [mercy seat] through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

The moment Jesus took His last breath, Scripture records that the veil in the temple was torn in two so that we all now have access to the mercy and love of Christ.

When we show compassion to others, we reflect Christ to them. When we take on someone else’s suffering, we put ourselves in their place, just as Christ did for us. When we invite others into our lives, we show the hospitality of Christ.

The mercy of God should flow through His people to others, just as it flowed constantly through Jesus’ earthly life. God the Father has compassion, Jesus the Son has compassion, and through the Holy Spirit, we can have compassion for others.

I am reminded of an old hymn that talks about the mercy seat. The mercy seat being a place of prayer, or a place of congregated believers who show forth Christ’s compassion.³

Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish;
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel;
Here bring your wounded hearts,
Here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that heav’n cannot heal.

Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure,
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
“Earth has no sorrow that heav’n cannot cure.”

Here see the Bread of Life; see waters flowing,
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above;
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but heav’n can remove.

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1 To name just a few: Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32, and 20:34

2 Quoted by Beth Moore in Moore, Beth. A Woman’s Heart. Nashville: LifeWay Press, 1995. p. 181.

3 Moore, Thomas and Hastings, Thomas. Come, Ye Disconsolate. Public Domain.

 

 

Plans

 

“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

—Philippians 1:6

The teacher lives by his or her plan book. If the teacher has done a good job, inside each plan book you can find day-to-day lessons. Each individual lesson will have an individual goal. Monthly or unit lessons that relate to the individual lessons will have a larger, more encompassing goal. Year-long plans for a specific grade level, or subject, will reflect the goals of the curriculum for the particular subject area.

Some teachers, once they have achieved mastery of all of these levels, begin planning “longitudinally.” This is the practice that I followed. I had music students from Kindergarten through Grade Four, so I looked at my students with the strategy of a five-year plan. How rewarding to see the skills these children acquired over those years and to know that I, in large part, had taught them and watched them grow in their proficiency.

We use a theological term for this kind of progress in our spiritual lives: sanctification. It’s important to note that sanctification follows God’s longitudinal design for us. And, rather than planning for a whole group of students—or disciples—God specifically designs a customized plan for each of us. He measures our individual progress against His long-term goals, which He has formulated for each of us since before the foundation of the world.

Joni Eareckson Tada, who became a quadriplegic as a teenager—on the day the doctors moved her in the hospital from “acute care” to “chronic care”—learned the very hard lesson of looking into God’s plan book. She knew then that this “lesson” of growth would become a long-range process. Here’s how she put it:¹

The core of God’s plan is to rescue us from sin and self-centerdness. Suffering—especially the chronic kind—is God’s choicest tool to accomplish this. It is a long process. But, it means I can accept my paralysis as a chronic condition. When I broke my neck, it wasn’t a jigsaw puzzle I had to solve fast, or a quick jolt to get me back on track. My paralyzing accident was the beginning of a lengthy process of becoming like Christ.

As we consider God’s work in our lives, we should ask ourselves what God uses to teach us short lessons, longer chapters, or life-lessons, and how He masterminds all of it for His long-range good purposes in our lives. And, we should remember that lessons always go best when we cooperate!

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1 Tada, Joni Eareckson. Pearls of Great Price. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2006. Devotional for February 17th.

 

 

The Sap of the Maple

 

“The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly and are filled with sap.”

—Psalm 104:16 Amp.

I love that in the months of February and March a great transformation takes place. The ground lies frozen beneath a blanket of snow and all the trees look like dead stalks. I can remember my childhood on a maple syrup-producing farm. Yes, before the robin sings his first song, before pussy willows pop their soft fuzzy shoots, or before the ice-hardened streams flow freely, we can find new life within the maple tree.

The maple tree, in order to produce the sweet sap, must teem with new life. Through its hidden roots, it must draw up from the moisture in the ground the glorious liquid that becomes its sap.

In a similar way, a Christian should bring forth new fruit and new living nourishment for the benefit of himself or herself and others. This fresh life is produced by the work of the Holy Spirit, Who brings the divine ability to give off the many effects of that new life. The root system of a Christian reaches deep down in God-breathed experiences, deep down to the Water of Life, the Lord Jesus, and deep down into the written Word of God that feeds spiritual nourishment to him or her.

The result of tapping into one of these mature maple trees and allowing a hot fire to boil away the extra liquid can be tasted in the remaining syrup and the many products made from the syrup, such as maple cream and maple sugar candy.

Mature Christians, with the living graces of Christ flowing into them, through them, and from them, produce sweet refreshments for others, as well. In Scripture, Galatians 5:22-23 refers to these sweet refreshments as the “Fruit of the Spirit.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon had this to say¹:

As the sap manifests itself in producing the foliage and fruit of the tree, so with a truly healthy Christian, his grace is externally manifested in his walk and conversation.

Let us continually feed on the Water of Life so that we provide Christ’s sweetness to everyone we meet.

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1 Spurgeon, Charles H. Morning and Evening. Public Domain. Devotional entry for October 24th.

2 The photo above was taken of a portion of the mural painted by Charlene B. Willink Kidder for the UPMC Chautauqua WCA Hospital Emergency Department’s Waiting Room in Jamestown, NY.

 

 

Spiritual Sinkholes

 

“Therefore let any one who thinks he stands—who feels sure that he has a steadfast mind and is standing firm—take heed lest he fall [into sin].”

—1 Corinthians 10:12 Amp.

If you were driving along and came to the sinkhole shown in the photo above, would you try to drive around it? If you were planning to build a house, would you set your sights on the lot adjacent to such a sinkhole? No reasonable person would do either.

Yet, we all sometimes dare walk by and peer into a pit like this and suddenly get drawn into it. Sin entices us when we least expect it and we fall.

For example, we all have “besetting” sins that we get used to having in our lives. Some of us live close to a sinkhole called “Worry.” We find it so easy to step over the side and fall into this sinkhole. Others of us nurse “Grudges.” We stand too near the rim and catch ourselves—on the way down! Some of us get too close to the edge of a pit called “Self-pity.” Before we know it, we’re at the bottom of this sinkhole with no apparent way out.

How do we make it a practice of staying out of the neighborhood where sinkholes abide? Some days we’d much rather build our house right there on the perimeter and enjoy our misery. Do you ever feel that way?

In her book, Jesus Calling, Sarah Young writes about this problem area. She explains the importance of this crisis of daily living.

Be on guard against the pit… When you are weary or unwell, this demonic trap is the greatest danger you face. Don’t even go near the edge of the pit. Its edges crumble easily, and before you know it, you are on the way down. It is ever so much harder to get out of the pit than to keep a safe distance from it.¹

Sarah Young suggests that Christians with this problem—the enticement of the pit—should occupy themselves with praising and thanking God for His blessings. She also speaks of living close to God in order to put a distance between us and the pit. Her suggestions are both good ideas.

Scripture itself, in the same passage as our introductory verse, tells us that we have help available if we want it. 1 Corinthians 10:13 states:

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

I hope that you will join me as we work at staying away from spiritual sink holes. Comfortable though it may be to peer into them, whenever we put ourselves into that kind of temptation, we cannot please our heavenly Father. He has definitely given us help to overcome such temptation.

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1 Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008. Devotional for February 23rd.