Devotional: How’s Your Gut?
What happens when you are in filthy clothes but cannot afford new ones? Someone has to get you new clothes at their own expense, right? That’s what the father did for the prodigal son in Luke 15:20. Compassion isn’t fair. Instead of making the son earn his trust back, compassion moved the father to restore the prodigal back into the family fortune after he squandered his share of the inheritance. And that’s what God the Father did for us by sending his son Jesus to die on the cross and restore us back into the family of God. God’s mercy and compassion towards us moves us to be hands on and “do likewise” by showing compassion to loved ones and strangers alike.
Questions For Meditation
- Read Colossians 3:12 King James Version). What does “put on” mean? When it comes to compassion, what kind of clothes have you been wearing?
- Read Luke 15:20. What would be the fair thing to do after the prodigal squandered a big chunk of his father’s wealth on wild living? Where would you be if God was only “fair” and not compassionate?
- Read Hosea 6:6 (KJV). Are you focused on what is “right” and “fair” with others? Or are you focused on compassion?
- Read Matthew 18:27-28. Why do you need to be “hands on” and proactive about being compassionate?
- Are you holding someone in your prison because they owe you ______ (fill in the blank) when God cancelled the infinitely greater debt you owe?
- Read Psalm 103:2-4. How can you be filled to overflow with compassion? Where does the power for compassion come from?
- Despite the call to compassion, does it still feel like showing compassion is too big a sacrifice for you to make because of what has happened to you? Did God sacrifice anything to show you compassion? What does Luke 10:37 say?