It's important to note that 10 weeks ago, I was unaware of the absolute necessity to a missionary's life these to aspects of God's heart are. In fact, it's safe to say that I gave little thought to compassion and I treated holiness, or the fear of God, as a motivation rather than a consistent exercise of faith.
Compassion. If you're like me, this word conjures up guilty feelings. I think of the times when I had been watching Friends when I was younger, for 3 straight hours on TV and then a commercial would come on about orphans in Africa or a commercial about aids, or something to do with a global injustice that seemed extremely distant from my small teenage life. My response: Turn the channel. Those commercials were painful to watch. And why were they painful? Because deep within me I knew that something needed to be done and despite the excuses I came up with, God's heart was with them.
"We need to be seriously disturbed by things that God is disturbed by," John Bills (a YWAM global leader, teacher, and missionary) says. He talks about compassion according to scripture as something entirely different than pity. Compassion demands action. The greek word for compassion means 'with suffering'-- and it is in essence, opening yourself up the suffering of another person and allowing your heart to connect. But God's compassion means that He feels entirely the suffering (and probably much, much more) of the individual and then He seeks to respond in an action. For us, it means to join with God in prayer. From the place of prayer God may move us to go a step further: give money, resources, skills, teaching, or maybe our life to a cause or a person.
This message of compassion came to me on day 2 of the School of Worship. My heart's response was a prayer of help: 'God, I want your heart. I open myself up to you, and I want to be seriously disturbed by what disturbs you. Give me your compassion.'
I can't tell you how many times the Holy Spirit pointed to this message over the following 9 weeks! He kept bringing us back this place- LOVE OTHERS. GIVE YOURSELF TO MY PEOPLE. LOOK ON YOUR NEIGHBORS WITH COMPASSION.
Many times in worship we were broken over some of the disasters in Burma and in China and at times we were broken over the lost.
Until about 8 weeks ago I absolutely hated evangelism. I still find street evangelism incredibly uncomfortable, but I am overwhelmed by the Father's heart for His people. This amazing love that He has for us all, compels me to go and have a few awkward conversations just for the opportunity that God may use me to reach one of His loved ones.
Holiness. Here's another one of those words that conjures up guilty feels, as it should, actually. I think of the failures recent and past, even after times of victory. I think of the path before me which is certainly not an easy one. I could probably write pages on this subject, because this part of God may have been the most impacting thing of all I have received here, but I will only write of one or two things that have grabbed me.
To put it simply: God is Holy. Without sin. Pure. No blemish, no wrong, no temptation to do evil. 'Holy' means set apart-- He is set apart from evil-- there is no darkness in Him, and He is full of light.
Now, when I pray the prayer, "God I want to be close to you. I want to know you in the most intimate of ways."-- I am actually asking for conviction. To come close to a Holy God means I have to be made holy. I've mentioned before God's convicting work feeling similar to that scripture in Malachi 3-- Where it speaks of conviction as the refiner's fire, and the launder's soap. The implications of this are amazing: it's not easy to give up sin. In fact, it conviction causes us to give up what we want-- to 'die' to our sinful desires and fleshly wants so that we can have a greater capacity to receive God's love. You see, God's love is for us %100-- all of the time. I can receive the fullness of it at any point. The only thing that changes is my capacity to receive His love-- which is holiness. It is fearing the Lord. It is to hate sin. It is to delcare war against my flesh and my emotions and to choose to fellowship with the truth and the light, that is found in Jesus.
Another thing that has struck me-- Apathy leads to death. We took a look at some certain occasions in the Old Testament where it looks like God was really harsh with His people. At one point, He consumes Aaron's two sons with holy fire because they did a procedure wrong in the Tent of Meeting. At another point, He kills Uzzah for trying to steady the Ark of the Convenant. There are plenty of explanations as to why God's wrath would be against these people in these events, but the explanations relate to one root problem-- The Israelites invited a Holy God into their midst and then dealt with Him passively, apathetically. God deserves nothing but the BEST (see the story of Cain and Abel..). My passivity is an insult to His grace to me.
Here's another way of looking at it. Most people have a problem with God because they think He is apathetic. A non-believer's first argument against the gospel: "If God is so loving, why are there people starving in Africa?" They think He is up sitting on His throne watching the world ruin itself and that He has little care for man kind.
This is not so! We who know Him, know this to be true. God is intensely, intimately involved in every moment, every area and every part of every person's life. He is always there. All the time. The Psalms say, He knows us from when we were conceived in the womb and He knows the number of hairs on our heads! This is the God we serve. He hates injustice. He hates how poverty destroys His people while there is more than enough wealth and food to benefit all man-kind. He hates sin and what it does to people. Yet, he honors free choice. He WANTS to use us to be the answer, and to be the very hands and feet of our prayers.
Apathy and passivity towards life, people, work-- it is opposite of what God is. It belongs to the enemy. This has been the largest battle that I have fought for that past 10 weeks. I have recognized so many areas in my heart that I have become apathetic in: relationships, chores, even at some points prayer meetings or worship times. Once the Lord showed me, apathy is the first step towards sin. As soon as I let my guard down and entertain any kind of temptation I have begun the fall into sin.
Compassion and Holiness.
To feel as God does, involving myself with those hurting around me and to live a life passionately at war against sin and destruction, in reverence, and in fearing God.
