Hurts: June 4, 2014

TODAYS WORD FOR WEDNESDAY JUNE 4, 2014.

HURTS

DEFINITION:

To cause bodily injury or pain; to suffer bodily or mental pain or distress.

SCRIPTURE:

Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another, be compassionate and humble. I Peter 3:8

When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless. Matthew 9:36.

Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with Me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry.” Matthew 15:3

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

The age that we live in could not be described as an age of compassion and sensitivity toward the needs of others. Instead we are living in what we might call the “ME” generation where people are only concerned about themselves. So when someone is hurt, no one really cares. We have developed a veneer of hardness to our fellow man.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “I am sorry for the man who can’t feel the whip when it is laid on the other man’s back.”

Much of our world today is calloused and indifferent towards mankind’s poverty and distress. This is due largely to the fact that many people have never experienced a new birth. The love of God has never shed abroad in their hearts. One big concern is that many people speak of a social gospel, which we believe is really not what it infers, and totally ignore the redemptive Gospel.

The truth is that there is only one gospel and that is that we must be redeemed, made right with God before we can be sensitive to the needs of others. Divine love, like a reflected sunbeam, shines down before it radiates out. Unless our hearts are conditioned by the Holy Spirit to receive and reflect the warmth of God’s compassion, we cannot love our fellow men and have empathy for their hurts as we ought.

As believers we are Christ’s representatives and we are given the mission to spread His message of salvation. He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God was making His appeal through us.

An ambassador is an authorized messenger or representative. If we are to effectively represent Christ and carry His message of salvation and reconciliation to those who are lost and hurting we must show genuine concern for them.

To show genuine concern requires more than words. We must act on it as Jesus did. When He saw the hungry He fed them. When He saw the sick and the crippled He healed them. When He saw those in sorrow He comforted them. Just as Jesus had compassion on the hurting so should we.  

LEARNING:

Our memory verse for this week is found in John 1:12.

To all that received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become the children of God.

PRAYER:

Help me to feel another person’s hurt and be concerned so that I may shed the light of Your love in a caring way.