KEN ANSELL | Waxahachie Daily Light
Jesus is a lot of things. He is our Lord which means master, He is our brother, He is our friend, He is our Savior and He is our King. He’s the guy that tells us where the fish are (John 21:6), He’s the guy that calms the storm (Mark 4:35-41) and He’s the guy that makes breakfast (John 21:12).
In Luke 7:11 – 17 He’s the guy that stops the funeral procession of a single mom who’s only son died. In verse 13 it says, “And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’” After that He touched the casket and said, “Young man, I say to you arise.” The dead man sat up and began to speak and Jesus handed him over to his mother.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but the thing that jumps out to me is that Jesus has compassion. Compassion is about sympathy, it’s about mercy, it’s about having pity. What’s important to notice is that Jesus did not just HAVE compassion, His compassion was tangible. So often we feel bad about something but we don’t do anything about it. Christianity is about action. Jesus sees this single mom that has lost her only child and He does something about it. Likewise, Jesus hears our prayers and He does something about our concerns as well. Jesus is a blue collar guy, He knows how to roll up His sleeves, how to turn a wrench, He knows how to punch the clock, carry a lunch pail, His name is on His shirt. What I’m trying to say is Jesus knows how to go to work, He’s a man of action. What about you? It reminds me of that old saying, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”
In John 15:20 Jesus told us, “A servant is not greater than his master.” Why does the modern day church expect Jesus to do all the heavy lifting?
We have all kinds of verbs in the Bible – things we are supposed to be doing, things like: Go, do, serve, teach, baptize, love, share, tell, pray, pick up our cross and these things, the action we take comes from our faith, we trust and we believe God – therefore we do what God has commanded us to do, we have faith that it is good, right and best.
Hebrews 11:6 says, “It is impossible to please God without faith.” Are you a God pleaser? Do you take action based on your faith? Is compassion just something you feel but it does not serve as the catalyst for you to do something about how you feel? He asked me to ask you that.