Have Compassion

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. (Mark 6:34)

It is so very easy for us to think about nothing and no one but ourselves. We seek understanding and forgiveness from others, yet we hold them to a higher standard and judge them when they don't come through on our perceived "fair" expectations. Especially when the other person is not a believer, we judge them harshly, don't we, and compare ourselves to them. At least we're not like them, hooray for that.

But then you read something like the above verse. Jesus had compasssion on people because they did not have the knowledge and understanding of God. They did not have the hope that is found in Christ. So of course they could be bitter, selfish people. But what Jesus did is reach out to those people, where they were, in order to draw them in to a relationship with Him.

This is what we should always remember when we see people who do not know Christ, when they treat us in unfair ways, when they ridicule us even for who we believe in. We should remember that they have no shepherd in their life and instead of being proud of ourselves we should have compassion for them. Not pity or condenscension. Compassion.

Because someone had to have compassion for us, back before we knew Jesus.

And aren't we still full of ourselves even now? Perhaps people are treating us with extra compassion even though we know Christ. Don't we then owe it to others to be treated as we ourselves are?

Just chew on that for a day or so. :)