#2 Spread the Love
One thing that every christian needs to make a part of their life is showing compassion to people in need and spreading the love. I know it sounds cheesy and everyone has probably heard this before at least once in their life but it’s entirely true. Everyone should be doing their best to help out people in need even if they don’t deserve it because that is what God did for us in sending his son to earth. God has given everyone a mission, an important one too, and part of it is to show compassion to those in need.
“Defend the week and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the week and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” -Psalm 82:3–4
Compassion is different than simply being kind to someone. You should always be kind to people and showing kindness is nice and all but compassion takes it a step further. To show compassion to someone you must take a step into their world and be with them, and suffer with them. It sounds a bit overdramatic but it’s true. We won’t always be able to fix everyones problems and we aren’t expected to, but we will always be able to show compassion. We can enter their pain and help them get through it, nobody should ever have to suffer alone.
Compassion/Origin: Latin/Meaning: Suffer with
When your at church or even at school they always have offerings or fundraisers for different causes. A common one is to build wells in places like Africa so people can have water sources close by. Maybe every once in a while you donate so money to help them because you want to help and this is the easiest way or maybe you just want to make yourself feel better, both are totally fine. However, you could take it a step further to show compassion to those people. You could go on a missions trip and walk along side them see and feel what its like to live the way they do. You can help build the well your self and you can help with so much more, you can just be there with them and get to know them and suffer with them. This is just one way to show compassion and trust me it has a much bigger effect on people than a simple act of kindness
(please note: I am not discouraging being kind to people, I think that even the smallest acts of kindness can make a persons day. I am not condoning people who only give offering like in the example above, everyone can show compassion in different ways.)
The expectation for us is too show compassion to anyone in need and to walk into their world and suffer with them rather than avoid it all together and leave them to be alone. Jesus once entered our world to walk along side us and too suffer with us, he showed compassion to everyone and now it is our turn to do the same.
Citations:
The Bible. Oxford University Press, 2004.
