Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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What Moves You?
In the course of any given day, I have opportunity to encounter and interact with drug addicts, angry young people, crotchety old folks, drunks, businessmen and women, single moms, and a whole lot of ordinary people just like me. And the question is, as I meet each of them, what do I feel? Do I feel sadness, or discouragement, or disgust, or anger, or feel all of that at the same time, or feel nothing at all? You too, will probably meet many people in the course of your day. How do they impact you? Do they even make it on to your radar?
In a number of passages in the gospels, we read that Jesus saw the multitudes, and when he saw them, he was, in the language of the King James version, "moved with compassion." Jesus felt love for people when he saw them and as a result, he did something.
"When he saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36).
We all know that we are to love people. But when scripture tells us to do that, it isn't necessarily or only talking about feeling something. It is talking more about doing something. At the same time that we know that doing things without any love makes them worthless (1 Corinthians 13), the reverse is equally true that if we only feel something but don't do anything, it amounts to the same nothing. It is not enough to only say that we love people. Love without actions is like faith without actions.
When Jesus saw the crowds of people, he was moved with compassion. He taught them a better way so that they would not be so lost. He healed them so that they would be able to live a better life. He fed them so that they would not go away hungry and collapse on the road. In this, he acted like his Father, of whom it is said,
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
When we feel anything but love for the people that we meet, we will either do nothing or do the wrong kinds of things. When on the other hand, we allow ourselves to be filled with the same love that God has for all mankind, we cannot help but reach out and minister to them. Compassion is meant to move us. When we are filled with love for the world, we like God will give of what we have. What moves you? What moves me? Is it the love of God?
"We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates (or feels anything less than love for) his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother" (1 John 4:19-21).
We need to begin by understanding and embracing the love that God has for us. While we were still sinners, he loved us (Romans 5:8). If that is what he did for us, can we do any less for any other "sinner" that we meet? So, let's open our hearts to feel the things that God feels as he looks at us and other people in this world. Love is what he feels. And as we feel that for the people that we will meet today and in the days to come, be moved, be encouraged to give of yourself. People everywhere need to be loved just as much as you and I do. Will we be moved to be the ones who share God's love with them today in big and small ways?
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