Bible Study . . . The Blessing of
Spiritual Compassion
God’s love reaches out to you and when God’s love touches your need, we call it Grace.
"For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God ... "
(Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV)
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.~~Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.~~Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.~~Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.~~Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.~~Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.~~Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. (Matthew 5:3-9 KJV)
_ Poor in Spirit: Spiritual Insufficiency
_ That Mourn: Spiritual Heartbrokenness
_ The Meek: Spiritual Submissiveness
_ Hunger & Thirst: Spiritual Fervor
_ The Merciful: Spiritual Compassion
_ Pure in Heart: Spiritual Perfection
_ The Peacemakers: Spiritual Posterity
Blessed are those who extend mercy, love, help, and forgiveness for they shall receive mercy in this life and in the life to come.
Whensoever thou hast mercy, God will have mercy upon thee;
if thou hast not mercy, neither will God have mercy upon thee.
—Gamaliel, The Jerusalem Talmud
If we’re good to everybody, will they return the kindness? Would that it were that simple. Sometimes only God notices and appreciates our acts of compassion. In Jesus day, the Jews lived under the merciless rule of the Romans. Compassion and mercy were signs of weakness. For example, Roman fathers had to authority to determined whether a newborn lived or died. If a Roman citizen did not want his slave or his wife any more, he could kill them at will.
Jesus appearance in such a political climate stirred controversy and engendered hope. He reached out to those who needed help with love and compassion. He extended His love to the outcasts and cast-outs, he healed the sick, straighten crippled legs and feet, and gave sight to the blind.
Yet, those to whom He extended mercy, nailed Him to the cross. Christ dying on the cross is the greatest symbol of mercy known to man.
When Jesus Christ died on the cross, all the work of God for man’s salvation passed out of the realm of prophecy and became historical fact. God has now had mercy upon us.... All the mercy that God ever will have on man He has already had, when Christ died. That is the totality of mercy. There couldn’t be any more... (Donald Barnhouse, God’s Discipline, p. 4).
Mercy comes from the Greek term, eleemosynary, meaning benefactor. Anything which benefits another person is mercy. Christians are known as those who extend the mercy of Christ to others.
What does it mean to be merciful? It is to feel and to extend the compassion of Christ.
One night in 1935, Fiorello H. La Guardia, mayor of New York, showed up in a night court in the poorest ward of the city. He dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench. One case involved an elderly woman who was caught stealing bread to feed her grandchildren. LaGuardia said, "I’ve got to punish you ten dollars or ten days in jail."
As he spoke, he threw ten dollars into his hat. He then fined everyone in the court fifty cents for living in a city "where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat." The hat was passed around and the woman left the courtroom with her fine paid and an additional $47.50.
