Filled With Compassion, Pouring Forth Love

I was just reading back through my last reflection on living a live of love, and knowing that I am loved.  Thank You Lord for such a rich reflection!  The last few weeks have been so personally insightful.  I pray that You would help me to embrace and assimilate the depth of understanding into my life, and live in such a way that I am representing You to everyone I meet, all day long!

This morning I felt like I should read through Matthew's Gospel, chapter 9.  This is such a rich chapter, it was hard to know where to start.  When I run into this situation I just read through the text and see what catches my attention the most.  Another way to say that is that some verses resonate in my spirit, and internally they are amplified and move me.  This is one way I have found of discerning what the Lord is saying to me. This morning the verses in chapter 9 that my spirit responded most too were the following verses - Matthew 9:35-38 NIV:

[35] "Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. [36] When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. [37] Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. [38] Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

These verses always pluck my heart-string, and they are especially poignant considering my reflection from yesterday concerning God's love for everyone, and the value that He has placed on us all.  When I read these verses, I imagine Jesus as a one-man wrecking ball destroying unbelief and the lies of the enemy everywhere He traveled.  He came representing the Father, establishing the Kingdom, proclaiming and demonstrating the reality of the Father's love, and reaching out to all He saw and encountered.

He was moved with compassion when He saw the crowds, and the language here means that He was moved deeply in His very depths.  The Greek word used by Matthew is Splagchnizomai.

 Definition:

1)  to be moved as to one's bowels, hence to be moved with compassion, have compassion (for the bowels were thought to be the seat of love and pity)

It is my opinion that this description of Jesus' emotional response was from the observation of others, not from Jesus' statement about His feelings.  I believe when it says in scripture that Jesus had compassion, or was moved with compassion, it was because people could literally see His compassion, see Him moved to His very depths.

If I read this section backwards, in verse 36 it says that Jesus had compassion on the crowds when He saw them.  In verse 35, it says that He proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom and healed every disease and sickness.  I think that is part of His expressing compassion, when He encountered anyone who was sick or needed healing He stopped and touched them, each and every one!  He didn't walk by those with colds, those with headaches, so he could just minister to the really needy, He went to each and every person who was suffering and touched them.  He expressed God's love for them all, one person at a time!

He saw the overwhelming need and desperate spiritual condition of the crowds and He was moved, just as the Father is moved.  He told the disciples to ask the Father to send more workers into the harvest field, and that, my friends, is us. We are both the harvest field and the workers.  We need to know God's love and compassion, and we need to be those that bring that message to those around us that are still "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd".

 Lord, I pray that You would waken my heart, that You would fill me with compassion for Your children who are wandering around lost and hungry, wondering if they have any value or worth, starving for love and thirsting for relationship.  Help me to represent You and be the instrument of the outflow of Your compassion! I want to be filled with Your compassion!  I want Your love to flow out of me to all I meet.

Amen!