Compassion – Peter Gowesky

Dear Christian,

So, I know… today was a tough day for some of you to swallow. The party voted on by “all good Christians” (emphasis added for sarcasm) didn’t put a president into office. Well… Get over it. Here we stand on the cusp of a new presidency. Unfortunately I hear too many people bantering and bickering over wether President Obama is the anti Christ, rather than how can we best pray for our new president? Too many Christians want to cry over the fact that He isn’t like them, and he smokes!

Well… Seriously, let’s get it together.

I mean honestly, it is time for us who call ourselves; followers of the way, Jesus Freaks, deacons, elders, disciples, pastors, sunday school teachers, young life leaders, FCA Huddle leaders, and most commonly- christians, to begin to be known for the things that we do than the things that we don’t do. It is time that we are known for loving those that differ from us, than pointing out all of the differences that make us so disgusted by them. In fact, it’s time for us to quit being disgusted by people who are different than us, and grow to love that difference. See, it’s my prayer that one day that pot smoking hippy type will be standing next to me in heaven praising God.

It’s my prayer that the person who I judged most will one day come to know the saving grace and the love of Jesus Christ! Unfortunately when “we” christians make bone headed statements like, “President Obama is going to lead this nation to hell”, I have a feeling that we may be putting a roadblock in the way of that gossip girl, or that man interested only in greys anatomy. Come on…

People don’t care what you know, until they know that you care.

Come on Christian… Step up your game. Get out there and love people…

John 13:34-35 “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

I need to step it up! Want to join me? I hope so…

~Peter

Have you realized yet that you interact with hundreds and thousands of people a year? Dependent upon your job, you may meet and greet several thousand people a year. If you live in a neighborhood, or development. If you live in what we have commonly called a town, city, or village… likely you will run into people. And here’s the deal. People are messy. People are really dirty. They have problems. They have issues! BOY DO THEY HAVE ISSUES! Everyone has issues but me. (Ever find yourself saying that?) What do we do with all of these dirty, messy, smelly, people filled with issues when we run into them. You know, the kind that barge into your life with all kinds of problems. How do you and I handle these moments? What is it that we will do?

We have started a new teaching series here with both of our groups, Junior High & Senior High. We’re calling it “Reflect Christ”. We are looking at how Christ showed compassion on the people He found surrounding Him. There were thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of interactions that Jesus had with people. The question of a good disciple should be, when I run into people how should I interact with them? Better yet, how would my Rabbi, my discipler, my Lord, my teacher interact with this person? How can I reflect the teacher? How can I reflect Christ? We are looking at three different examples of how Christ dealt with three different groups of people. They are:

The Person I don’t know
The Person I know
The Person I know the best

What do you think compassion really is? How can we show compassion to those around us? Whoever they may be… No matter what category they fit into.

I just can’t stop thinking about this question: “How are we going to deal with those we find ourselves surrounded with?”

Thoughts?

~Peter