Tag Archives: compassion

MOLLY AND ME – COMPASSION

December 7, 2017Christian Lifecompassion, dog-ness, Father, MollyLuella Campbell

It amazes me how life lessons can be found in simple things. Take Molly and me, for example. As I mentioned in my last post, Molly is my thirteen-month-old, strawberry dapple miniature dachshund – a fancy title for a cute, mischievous, energetic, adoring and adorable little sausage dog.

She has taught me much about worship, not the faulty, fickle and often selfish what-do-I- get-out-of-this kind of human worship but the dog-kind – the unselfconscious, unselfish and pure kind of worship that she shows me when she lies on my lap and gazes into my eyes with adoring devotion reflected in her dark brown eyes.

In Molly’s eyes, I am perfect. I can do nothing wrong. I praise her when she understands and does what I ask her to do. I give her treats for no reason at all. I faithfully feed her and give her clean water to drink. She sleeps in a clean, warm bed (with me, of course), every night. I protect her from harm as best I can and she responds to my care with loyalty, adoration and companionship.

How do I respond to this kind of devotion? I see her as small, vulnerable, sometimes uncomprehending, sometimes stubborn but always coming back to me to love and be loved. Since I recognise that she is a dog, not a human, I have to adjust my attitude towards her accordingly. My heart goes out to her in compassion; she is small and fragile. I don’t judge her for her failures. I accommodate to her dog-ness. Why? It’s because I love her for who she is.

Then I find myself multiplying my compassion for Molly by the God-ness of God’s compassion for me and I glimpse the heart of my Father towards His human children. He knows how frail and vulnerable we are. He knows how weak we are; He understands that we are dust (Psalm 103:14 – NLT).

How can I judge Molly when she is only a dog?

My Father has placed all my judgment on Jesus, His Son because I am only a human. I could never have satisfied His perfect standards, so Jesus took my place and bore the punishment I deserved for my failure. Now I can sit on the Father’s lap and gaze into His face with pure adoration because of His love for me.

The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He will not constantly accuse us nor remain angry forever. He does not punish us for all our sins; He does not deal harshly with us as we deserve. For His unfailing love towards those who fear Him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth (Psalm 103:8-11 – NLT).

Did You Know (4)

May 23, 2016Apologeticscompassion, self-destruction, unforgiveness, unpayable debtLuella Campbell

DID YOU KNOW (4)

…That you cannot forgive without compassion.

Many, if not most people struggle to forgive. Some even refuse to forgive the offense of another, choosing to allow bitterness to destroy them and all their relationships rather than to let go and be free.

Someone once said that harbouring unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

In His model prayer, Jesus highlighted two things that will destroy us. The first is the refusal to forgive.

And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors (Matt. 6:12).

Forgiving our debtor is the only thing that will free us from being eaten alive from the inside out by our bodies’ response to bitterness. Our bodies, souls, and spirits function as a unit. Our emotions which come out of what we think and believe, produce physical reactions which, if sustained over a long period of time, will gradually destroy our organs and shorten our lives.

God designed our bodies to functional optimally when our hearts and minds are at peace and we can only have sustained peace when we have no issues with God or other people. Jesus took care of our issues with God, removing the barrier of sin and reconciling us to the Father through His shed blood. He also took care of the barrier between us and other people in the same way.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two groups (Jew and Gentile) one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in His flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which He put to death their hostility (Eph. 2:13-16).

He has given us the right and privilege of forgiving our debtors because He has already forgiven all the debt of sin, ours and theirs. When we choose not to forgive, we are punishing them again for the sin that has already been punished.

The second thing that will destroy us is ourself-centeredness and all the ramifications of selfish living.

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one (Matt. 6: 13).

Unfortunately, misunderstanding of this Scripture has led us to believe that the devil is our main problem. He may influence us towards evil, but we are actually our own worst enemies. We are not Satan’s victims unless we allow Him to control us by believing His lies. Jesus exposed His deception and defeated him at the cross. Our own selfish pride, not the devil, causes us the most trouble. Living in dependence on the Father, not by our own wisdom and wits, will keep us walking in humility and freedom from the destruction we cause ourselves by our arrogant independence.

Let’s go back to the issue of forgiveness. In response to Peter’s question, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus told a story about a king who called his servants to account for the debts they owed him (Matt 18:21-35).

Peter thought he was being magnanimous by forgiving his brother seven times for the same sin. Jesus pointed out that it was not how many times he forgave his brother that was important but how he felt about his brother.

In the story, one servant owed the king such a vast sum of money that he would never be able to repay him in his lifetime. The king demanded payment or he, his wife and children and all his possession would be sold to repay the debt. The servant pleaded for time and promised to pay what he owed.

Imagine the scenario. A servant owed his master more money than he could earn in a lifetime and yet he promised to repay his debt! How would the king react? Would he close his heart to the servant’s plea and make his wife and family also pay for the servant’s folly? The entire story hinges on the next verse.

The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go (Matt. 18:27).

Perhaps for a moment the king put himself in the servant’s place. Enslavement for the rest of his life was a horrible alternative. Instead of anger and revenge, his heart was filled with compassion. The servant’s wellbeing meant more to him than the money he owed. He responded to the compassion he felt by forgiving the servant, cancelling the debt and setting him free.

The same servant met a fellow servant who owed him a paltry amount. Instead of responding with the same compassion and mercy the king has shown him, he demanded immediate payment and refused to forgive as his master had forgiven him. Imagine the king’s outrage when he found out what the servant had done. Not only did he recall the debt but he also had the servant jailed and handed over to be tortured until he could pay.

What a terrible end for a man who refused to show mercy! The end to Jesus’ story is a chilling reminder of what happens to those who refuse to forgive.

This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart (Matt. 18:35).

Jesus was not only talking about the consequences of unforgiveness in the life to come. Torment begins now, in this life in many different ways, the physical, emotional and spiritual outcome of holding on to offenses.

The key issue is: How much do you value God’s mercy towards you? If you refuse to forgive, how can He show mercy to you? He must treat you in the same way as you treat others. You cannot expect one standard for God and another for yourself. You set the measure of grace you receive from Him by the way you choose to show grace to others. How do you feel about the one who has harmed you? Jesus shows us how to evaluate people who offend you:

Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23: 34).

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What is man?

March 17, 2016Pastor's Deskcompassion, prayerPaul Smit

Dear Family

If we truly take a good, long, honest look at ourselves as the human race, it takes very little effort or imagination to realize that we are indeed a motley bunch of creatures. We have enormous capacities to injure one another, to hate, to deceive, to trample on and to do just about anything else which, if left unchecked, would ultimately result in the extinction of mankind in a ridiculously short space of time! The bible puts is like this in Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Is it any wonder that when God adopts us into His family that He deems us “new creations”?
And yet we have a Father, the God of all creation, who has said of us in Psalm 8:4: “what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” I find it incredible that God actually has us in mind in the first place. That He actually loves us, and actually sees us as we can be, and actually invites us into His kingdom, and actually chooses to adopt us as His sons and daughters. Mind blowing stuff! Is it just not possible to meditate on these things without being gobsmacked by how wonderful, loving and kind our God actually is, especially seeing as we do not and cannot deserve His kindness.

Psalm 103:13-14 puts everything into perspective: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”
What a relief—He knows we are dust and He chooses therefore to have compassion on those who fear Him!
As we witnessed the goings on in parliament recently and saw the gods of our country doing their very best, we became acutely aware again that outside of submission to Almighty God and the fear of Him in our land and powers of parliament, we have nothing and instead find ourselves bent on a road of self destruction. We will continue to point fingers and blame until we all find ourselves on another planet, but nothing can change until we remember who we actually are and who God actually is.

He has compassion on those who fear Him. He knows how dusty we are. He knows how to fix and what to do. He knows! Now more than ever we need to be in secret in our cupboards praying for our kings—the pattern to use is simply “The LORD has compassion on those who fear Him”. Let’s keep on keeping on, praying our leaders into the will of God.

On To Maturity

November 21, 2014Bible Studycomfort, compassion, encouragement, like-minded, tendernessLuella Campbell

ON TO MATURITY

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, of any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being in one spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking at your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:1-4.

Paul must have been relieved that he did not have to deal with false teaching or misconduct in the Philippian church. These people were a joy to him. Some of the churches he founded were still wading around in the shallows of false beliefs and ungodly behaviour. This group of people seemed to have grasped the truth from the beginning and were moving apace towards being mature in their faith and influential for Christ in their living out the gospel.

Paul was happy to be able to add some polish to their lives by urging them on to unity which was the high tide mark of the true church. The gospel and their faith in Christ had brought them into the realm of the Spirit of God where the values of the kingdom were becoming more meaningful and ever more evident in them in spite of their environment.

Like all the other churches, they were like lilies blooming in the swamp. All around them people lived in the ungodliness of their sinful natures. There were no boundaries to their sinful behaviour because they were living out the nature of the gods they worshipped. But, in the church and in their lives together, the values of the kingdom of God were appearing more and more: unity with Christ, the comfort of His love, caring and sharing among the people in the Body, tenderness and compassion, were all there in increasing measure.

This delighted Paul. It was what the gospel was all about – not just believing in Jesus as a passport to heaven, a free ticket to God’s forgiveness and access to all His blessings. The gospel was about yielding to Christ as their new Master and living in the world by His power and in line with His nature.

All this is moving towards the goal of God’s creation. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God to reflect Him by living in perfect harmony with him with one another and with the world which He created for them. God is one; He made the entire universe to be one, interconnected and interacting as a unit. Sin entered the world through Adam’s disobedience, disrupted the unity and brought death and destruction to God’s perfect creation.

Jesus came to earth, God in person, to restore the universe to its original state and to get God’s purpose back on track. Once the barrier of sin had been removed, God was able, through His Holy Spirit, to set His plan in motion to reunite estranged people to himself and to each other. This was the evidence that Jesus accomplished what He had been sent to do.

Why does the church not understand this? Paul touched the nerve centre of man’s fallen nature – selfish ambition and vain conceit. As long as self rules, the life of that person will be out of sync with God’s intention to reunite everything in Christ as the head.

“For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.” Colossians 1:19, 29, 20.

What is the key to real unity in the church? Paul gives us two simple steps: value others above yourselves and take care of the interests of others above your own. Is that difficult to do? Yes, it is if we are still alive to ourselves on the inside. No, it is not if we, like Paul, have died to ourselves and are alive to Christ and to what pleases Him. It all depends on how we view ourselves, alive or dead.

When we die to our old fleshly desires and appetites, we see ourselves from another perspective – not individuals taking care of ourselves first, but part of a living organism that functions as a unit, each part moving in unity with those around him. The goal is not for selfish benefit but for the benefit of the whole body. That’s when we can begin to experience heaven right here on earth and convince the world that Jesus was who He said He was and that He really came from heaven to restore everything that went wrong in the beginning.

Now Paul invites us to be a part of that!

It’s A Mystery!

August 13, 2014Bible Studycompassion, God, mercy, Pharaoh, unjustLuella Campbell

IT’S A MYSTERY!

“What, then, shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’

“It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.” Romans 9:14-18.

Now we get to the difficult part. We view God through our human eyes and think that He has no right to do with people whatever He chooses.

Does that mean that God deliberately creates some people to show off His glory by making them wicked and then sending them to hell? The Bible never insinuates that He ever does anything like that. That’s the kind of thing a man-made god, capricious and unpredictable like its creator, would do!

We have to see the picture from God’s perspective. Since our forefather Adam’s decision to disregard God’s instruction and make his own rules, the entire human race has been in a state of rebellion against God, leaving Him no option but to allow the consequences of our rebellion take their course. To be true to His justice, He has to punish sin. His punishment comes in the form of death because death is the result of anything imperfect and corrupt.

God could have left it at that and allowed the entire human race to perish at its own hand. Instead, because of His mercy, He intervened by sending His Son to take the rap for us. Having removed the reason for our punishment, He invites whoever wants to, to receive His mercy and His gift of forgiveness, and get back on track to being restored to His image. With sin and punishment out of the way, those who entrust themselves to Him are in the process of being made holy; that is, being set free from sin to obey God for His purposes and for His glory.

So where do our rights come into it? As guilty sinners, the only right we ever have is to God’s justice – and that means eternal separation from Him. He put His law into our hearts at conception. Everyone instinctively knows what is right and wrong; and that makes us doubly guilty before God – guilty because we know what is right and guilty because we because we refuse to submit to His authority and choose to do wrong.

How can we question God if He chooses to show mercy to those who respond to His invitation to return to Him, and to reject those who reject Him? Take the case of Pharaoh to which Paul refers. The Biblical record indicates that God gave Pharaoh ten opportunities to listen to His instruction, and release His people, but five times Pharaoh refused.

Every time he refused to obey God, his heart became harder towards Him. It was not God’s fault that Pharaoh would not acknowledge His authority. Pharaoh made his choice and God simply confirmed it by making it impossible to for him change his mind. So whose fault was it that Egypt was destroyed? God’s fault? No! Pharaoh chose to ignore God’s warnings and take the consequences. And, in so doing, he inadvertently shone the light on God’s power and glory.

Does that mean that our destiny is in our own hands? Yes, in a sense it does, and yet, at the same time, in a way which is beyond our understanding, God miraculously intervenes and rescues us from our own stubborn rejection. Take Paul, for example. He would never have become the apostle he was, had Jesus not confronted him on the Damascus road. He needed that kind of shock treatment to wake him up to the truth.

And that is the mercy of God! If left to our own devices, would we ever turn to Him? I don’t think so. Self-will is too deeply entrenched for us to let go easily. The miracle is that some people actually respond to God’s mercy, turn away from their sin and follow the way back to Him. They are the ones who fulfil His will, enjoy His goodness and will experience the fullness of eternal life.

It truly is a mystery – this sovereignty of God!

Acknowledgement

Ebenezer Family Church

HE IS RISEN!