Compassion 
Joe Slater
	You’ve had a long, hard day. You need some time alone just to pray and think. But along comes a throng of people wanting something from you. How do you react?
	What approach do you take toward someone who has offended you? I don’t mean someone who has merely slighted you or committed some minor infraction; I mean the person who has seriously harmed you.
	One more question: What about the total stranger you encounter who needs substantial material assistance? How do you treat him/her?
	We all know what the answers to these questions ought to be; but too often, what ought to b doesn’t equal what is. Jesus taught and practiced compassion. “Having compassion for one another” is not an option, but a command (1 Peter 3:8). Several New Testament words come into English as “compassion.” The one in 1 Peter 3:8 means to be touched with the other person’s feelings. Another word means to be moved in our hearts (literally our bowels, which the ancients considered to be the seat of love and pity). Still another word means to bear gently, not becoming unduly disturbed over someone’s faults.
	Jesus had compassion on the multitude that intruded on His rare moments of solitude (Matthew 14:14). In the parable of the two debtors, He illustrated compassion even toward gross sinners (Matthew 18:27). And in the parable of the good Samaritan, He illustrated love with a man’s compassion upon a stranger, demonstrated by meeting that stranger’s needs at considerable personal expense.
	Most of us find it easy to have compassion upon a grieving mother (Luke 7:13), or upon the sick and suffering (Mark 1:40-41), or perhaps even toward our wayward child (Luke 15:20). However, we are to show compassion to those who sin against us, even as God shows compassion to us when we sin against Him (Luke 18:33). Our pride tells us to strike back, or at the very least to get our noses out of joint, ignore the offender, and let him get what he deserves. After all, we don’t owe him anything, do we? The real test comes when it’s downright inconvenient to demonstrate compassion, or when we feel like the other person doesn’t deserve it. Those are the times when we show the world whether Christ actually lives in us.
	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Trying to Diet
	r Said the dieter to a friend: “This morning I phoned to sign up for an exercise class. The instructor told me to wear loose clothing. If I had any loose clothing, I wouldn’t need the class!
	r  A man asked his wife how she liked his new rainbow-patterned tie. “Well,” she responded, “it would look much better if there wasn’t such a big pot at the end of it! 
Plenty of Warning
	Following W.W.II, a good friend and I attended college and then became teachers. While earning our degrees, I invited my friend to chapel daily since he had on occasion indicated he was "close to" accepting Jesus, though he resisted my urges over the next 50-some years.  After college, he married and attended a denomination with his wife. She assuring me his baptism had been "close enough" to the biblical burial I was then preaching in my early retirement years. He died in his 70's.

	My friend had been like the lifelong bachelor who, with marriage on his mind, courted a woman he admired. One day the bachelor called to announce his engagement, and his friend sought out the details, asking, "How did you propose? Did you get down on your knees?" His answer was no, that she had proposed the year before if he would become thrifty and save $5,000.00 in that year, then she would consider marrying him.

	The year passed, they celebrated the date, but he didn't mention marriage. At last, she asked how much he had managed to save that year and he told her it was some $28.62. She replied, "That's close enough!"

	Thinking on that story, I would have been happy if my friend's choice had been "much closer" when it came to believing in God's word and obeying Scripture concerning baptism. Even "closer" is not really "close enough," nor does "a tie go to the runner." How often have we laid down the "one way" sign only to see shortcuts block that final step, "nearer to God"?
	-- Grover V. Herrmann (Santa Maria, CA)