A Heart for Humanity

                         Kindness, like compassion is simple yet so lacking. It seems that we are so keen on falling back into our selfish ways that these trates which we know we should have just fade away into the backs of our minds. Only coming about when we see someone else not using them the way we know they should be. The hardest part about kindness is remembering that we owe it to everyone, not just the ones its easy to give to.
We are called to do the hard things, and sometimes that means doing things we don't want to do. Like being kind to someone we don't like, or feeling compassiona for someone we think we hate.
And I know what your thinking, that's easy right? Well what about being compassionatte toward people like President Obama or Saddam Hussein or even Bin Laden when he was alive. Not so easy now is it? It's not easy because we know of the bad things they've done to us and still are doing, things we know to be wrong. But we have to remember that they are not the enemy. They are just mislead people, and no sin is greater than another, so we are no better than them.
But this kind of kindness, love and compassion cannot come from us without Christ first being in us.
I'm sure you've heard people say, "You may be the only bible some people ever see." Well, it's true. On the day of judgement would you want to be standing in line waiting for your turn to see Jesus, and watch as He helplessly condemns someone you had the chance to witness to through your actions, but didn't?
It gets easier though, to be kind to everyone, to show the love of Christ. Because once He's lived in you for so long and you give Him control of your life, He starts to change you. Your wants and desires, your thoughts and feelings. And before long you'll find yourself caring for people you've never met and sharing the love of God wth everyone you meet. And you'll be happy doing it. Because He gives you His heart for humanity, which is what this is all about.
But at the same time it gets harder, because as soon as you put God first and dedicate your heart to learning His ways, Satin puts you at the top of his list, and starts shooting those fiery arrows. Becasue he knows how much potential we have when we are in Christ. But if you run to Jesus every time your afraid or tempted you won't have to fight him.
 

Friendliness is much the same, same principals just a different characteristic. When Jesus has our heart, we tend to lean toward the right thing. And when we don't we know it.
It's important I think to remember that everyone is going through something. And the way they treat you has a lot to do with what their going through. But the same applys for us, so we have to show them that even though were going through things too, we have someone who sustains us through it all. And they can have Him too.
The only way to keep a character which has all of these attributes is to constantly go to the Father and ask Him to give us a desire for the right thing. And ask Him to take the blinders off of our eyes so that we can see where our flaws are.
Each and every person on this earth is either a brother or sister in the fact that we were all created by the same God. And because we have found the truth it's our duty to show it to them and lead them to it the best way we can. This is our calling, and everything we learn from the Father is teaching us how to do this.

Compassion

 The last six things we've gone over are mostly characteristics that we should try to have in order for our relationship with Christ to grow. The rest of the characteristics we'll go over are things we will learn from Christ when we do that. Things that we should strive to have. The first is compassion.

    Compassion is simple, yet so lacking in our world. And as I remind you in just about every post, our job as christians is to live out our lives resembling Jesus as best we can. Well, jesus was all about love, in fact the bible says "God is love."

    


Love is the foundation for compassion.


  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.    1 Corinthians 13:4-8

     
      In older versions of the bible you will find that they use the word charity in place of the word love, this is because the Hebrew word for love means what the verse above describes which in our language is better described with the word charity. It is the act of dieing to ones self, and living for others. So you see, compassion and love go hand in hand.  
    It seems ironic to me that the worlds idea of love is a good feeling you get when someone treats you right, when in reality love is an action that we are to show. While compassion is seen as the act of doing something for others, when in reality it is the act of feeling with and for them.
    Many times when we think of compassion we're reminded of those commercials we see with young orphaned children in some third world country, and the people who give up their lives to go there and help them. That is definitely compassion. But does that mean we can't be compassionate here at home? Surely not.
     In fact compassion can and should reach a much broader range of actions then just feeding the hungry. There are people here among you and me who are hurting and need the hope we keep tucked away in our hearts.They need Christ's love. The best way that we can show them that is by filling ourselves so full of it that it overflows onto others. This goes back to having a quiet time with Christ, for how can we be like Him if we aren't spending time with Him? How can we poor out His love on others if we don't soak enough up ourselves?
   Compassion, simply put, is having the heart of Christ. He came down to a sinful people who had already turned from Him once, knowing that He would be battered and beaten, frowned upon, hated and killed by them. Simply because He was not willing to let us die, and live eternally in a place created specifically for satin and his demons, at the hands of a merciless devil. If that is not a heart for humanity, then I don't know what is.
    We live in a world full of unloved people who would do anything to find love. So many people are hurting because they feel like no one cares about them. This is because we were designed to be cared about deelpy. And when we lack that, we feel like we're missing something. Simply because we are. But Christ is here to fill that void, we just have to let Him in.
   Our goal is to help them see that. So we must ask God to break our hearts for what breaks His. And give us such a burden for the lost that were not willing to let another perish without knowing about the salvation that they can receive. And most importantly, we must ask God to work in their lives and open their hearts to Him.