Written by Dynamis Ministries | June 15, 2023
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. – 1 Corinthians 1:3
This is one of the great word pictures of God the Father in all of Scripture. The Apostle Paul describes God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who Jesus himself affirms in referencing his Father in heaven on many occasions. Yet Paul goes beyond portraying the Father in relationship to Jesus. Paul calls God the Father of compassion who comforts anyone in trouble. This is marvelous to our hearts and souls. God is the Father of compassion!
Compassion is a big word. It is a word we are familiar with but may not truly understand. It is related to words such as pity, sympathy or empathy, but it is distinguished by one main thing:
action.
To have pity on someone is simply to acknowledge their suffering. To have sympathy is to care about their suffering. To have empathy is the ability to feel their suffering, to “step into their shoes.” Compassion takes all that one step forward. Compassion is not only acknowledging, caring and feeling for another person’s suffering, compassion is actually taking action to relieve that suffering.
When Paul calls God the “Father of compassion,” he is saying that God cares so much about our suffering that he willingly enters into our stories to comfort us. Isn’t that amazing! The God of the universe has compassion that comforts you and me! God comforts us out of his love and compassion, but did you catch that he also comforts us to share the comfort we have received with the world?
We do not have to look very hard to observe that there is a lack of compassion in the world. When we examine ourselves and culture, we see hardened hearts towards people who think or act differently than us and minimize their suffering. Rarely do we ever consider what others might be going through in the hardships of life before rushing to judgment. We tend to accept or speak ourselves words that are hurtful and harsh about others, whether it be in conversations, social media or news outlets. Let’s not conform to these patterns of the world, rather let’s live like the Father and show compassion, compassion that starts with caring and moves to comforting people in their suffering.
As we grow in our compassion for others, we may even notice that we are growing our generosity as well. That’s because generosity is fueled by compassion. When we care about someone’s suffering and want to do something about it, we are more willing to generously give away our time, gifts and resources. In this season of your life, what’s breaking your heart? It may be human trafficking, food insecurity, mental health, domestic violence or breakdowns in education. Whatever it is, be moved by compassion and take action to do something about it with your generosity. In doing so you’ll not only be comforting one’s pain and suffering, you will be bearing the image of God, the Father of compassion.
