Compassion, The War Within, & How to Be an Overcomer

By Pamela Gudgeon

“The treacherous dealer deals treacherously.”  Isaiah 21:2 records that he had a vision of the destruction that was to come upon Babylon from the Medes and the Persians.  During the Babylonian festivities they were about to be surprised by their enemies. (Adam Clarke’s Commentary, pp. 579, 580)  That particular Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians.  That was a season that has already been fulfilled, however, we, even now, still have a type of Babylon in operation that is bringing a great destruction to God’s people.  The treacherous dealer will always deal treacherously, if we allow it and do nothing.  

We are in a season of war; a war for the mind, soul, and actions of God’s people.  Who we are and what we do have become more important to our enemy than we would like to admit. How do we battle this horrific theft of our rights?  We use our God given gifts  (1 Corinthians 12) and we use the gifts of knowledge that we have gleaned through our lives.  Everyone has something to offer in this war and we need to find our place in the battle.  My hope is that within this thoughtful article you find a pure-hearted meaning that can cause a positive change in thought, so as to act for the sake of righteousness in our challenging season as a body of believers in Christ Jesus.

Teachers guide themselves and others into a process of mental or physical improvement.  We are all students, for one cannot even teach without first having the love of learning.  There are three words that we need to separate and define before we go forward.  “Sympathy involves understanding from your own perspective.  Empathy involves putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and understanding WHY they may have these particular feelings.” (www.psychmc.com, articles) Compassion is even different from sympathy and empathy in that there is the willingness to relieve the suffering of another: action rules compassion.

Empathy or Sympathy, as a stand alone emotion, can be associated with extremes: some have more, some have less. If we place this on a horizontal continuum, we can see the extremes. For instance, on the left side of the extreme, we have a person that has zero amount of empathy/sympathy for their fellow man, while on the other side of the extreme is a person that is overloaded with empathy/sympathy for their fellow man. Neither one is defined as compassion until or unless “mercy” compels that person to “faith in action”.

A truly apathetic person is extremely rare and tends toward being evil, while an overloaded emotional person tends toward a catatonic state of inaction, but is not committing evil. Neither one is truly compassionate. The first example is a sin of commission, the latter, a sin of omission.  How can we understand this further?

The Hebrew thought of true teaching or instruction, is the word “torah” (H. 3384, yarah)  It paints a picture of water flowing, raining, and like a shooting arrow hitting the bullseye.  “Sin” by definition means missing the bullseye, the center red area of a shooting target. In order to be guilty of sin, one must truly understand what sin is. If by odd chance, a person is incapable of understanding what sin is, then they are judged under the law accordingly (mercifully). If they truly understand, but are consumed by self (carnally minded), they are judged accordingly (punishment). 

A Christian is called by the Master to judge oneself, not by condemnation, but by true Godly self correction. The word translated “repentance” from the Greek, metanoia, simply means “to change one’s thinking”.  This process happens as we justify and continue to justify ourselves to the truth of God and His works.  In other words, we make ourselves “right” with God by our faith in Him and our sometimes painful process of correction.  Salvation is a decision made in the grace of God, yet a continual process of increasing faith as we grow and mature in Him.  Let our daily correction move us into action to combat evil on the earth.  A clear indication that we are in a good place with our Lord is that we live in the light of the truth, not only learning truth from our own inadequacies, but also learning truth from unrighteousness in the earth (both truths will prompt us to action).  

 

We are justified not through our works, but through our faith. Faith is an action verb, as faith without works is dead. This may seem like a contradiction, but it is not. The scriptures tell us that it is impossible to please God apart from faith. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

 

The equipped and emotionally balanced person searches for the middle ground of truth. Jesus teaches us not necessarily what to think, but how to think.  In order to walk in the light of the middle ground, we may need to be able to consciously remove ourselves emotionally from any given situation in order to help; to be ready in season and out (as it were) to give an account of our actions or inactions as the case may be.  

Much like a valued and educated emergency physician that truly cares about people, they often face seemingly impossible situations, but they are often able to keep their emotions in check and use their training to help the patient through their emergency, even though doing so might increase the patient’s pain level.  A valued police officer is trained in the same way.  Oftentimes there are no easy answers, but doing nothing at all yields no good outcome. So it is with us. 

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So, there are remedies and there is always hope.  

1. Emotional Health (admitting problem with self and fixing it so as to walk in the middle ground of truth)  This takes much work and requires a strong individual.

2. Widening the scope of right decision making with cognitive thinking and meditating can keep us from erroneous judgment of other people (great quality in any continuum thinking)

3. The shallow and self-serving people need knowledge of themselves and Christ Jesus so they can truly grasp the movements of the season in which we live.  Action to help others is a good practice of faith.  

4. Lastly, the truly evil people that act to destroy and harm others can also turn to Christ Jesus and move to upward motives as well. (only God knows who can have that kind of revelation in Christ Jesus)

Our war, as Christians today, is a war within ourselves. It is our Christian duty to study, to move in good faith by our good actions, to know ourselves and our limitations, to find our place in battles, AND to not be passers-by when we see a wrong being done.

This war is not a gender issue, a sexual issue, a political issue, or anything else that is manifesting against the truth and the Word of God.  This war is a good vs. evil issue.  We are required to DO something good.

The Changing of the Guard

 

Eagles Over America

The Changing of the Guard

By Pamela Gudgeon

I missed something.  The Lord spoke to me from the depth of my soul. This morning in prayer, the Lord Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, reached into my depth and brought out something that was buried so deep in me which I found difficult to accept.  I tried to deny it, but I couldn't.  He said "You think I am tricking you." I had an initial reaction of "oh no, Lord,....." I didn't get to finish that statement. I sat in quiet dismay.

I had lost my way.  As I thought back through the many years of promised servanthood for the Lord, I realized that what seemed to be a failure in service to God and His people was really a stepping stone to my future.  Every perceived failure had brought me to a low place of a faithless blundersome depression as I would state to myself, "Well, that's not how that was supposed to happen!"  I then would start guarding my heart to protect myself from the pain of perceived yet personal rejection.  As it turned out, I was guarding my heart in a wrong way. 

Ashamedly, through these years I sat in my quandary wondering if the Lord was hoodwinking me as to my giftings and purpose in Him and how He wanted to use me for His kingdom.  My faith was wanning. This day I have received from the Lord a new, fresh Word that has given me new, fresh hope.  

He said, "When you are able to focus on the downtrodden, broken people and take up their burdens, then you will be ready for the calling I have stored up for your life." 

Ministry is not what I have been given from God to give out to His people as much as it is what I give out to His people to meet their needs which God ordains in His timing. In other words, God's people and their needs are the first focus and not what I have to offer His people.

I remember I heard a speaker in the past say that the Lord asked her to take all the grocery shopping carts back that people had left amiss in the parking area. She complained, but did it.  As she spoke about it, truthfully, it seemed a little trivial at first.  However, once you are honest with God and yourself, you can see the value in cleaning up someone's mess, even when you didn't make that mess.  

How would our culture be today if we all learned this simple little lesson when we were 6 or 7 years old?  Be honest with yourself and with God.  Jesus is the great teacher on this issue; He cleaned up our messes so we can be heirs in the Kingdom of God and so we can help clean up other people's messes.

So, my issue could have been resolved according to Psalm 119:28 (KJV) as it reads, "My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word".  

However, the (NIV Ps. 119: 28f) reads this way, "My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word. Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me and teach me your law. I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I have set my heart on your laws."

We can get a bit dismayed in service to God and His people, but we are to rise above perceived defeat with right thinking.  That little bad seed that was in me could have grown and caused me great turmoil if the Lord hadn't healed me and changed my thinking.  I turned my heart over to the Lord concerning this wrong thought.  I have allowed the Guard (Jesus) to take control of my heart, where my understanding of Him and His word lives.

This article entitled, "The Changing of the Guard" is not referring to a literal duty or shift change of fresh and rested soldiers, but the figurative change of soldiers ' hearts living in the fresh and rested kingdom of heaven with His resurrection power here on earth.  These Christian soldiers have Christ inside them and should daily test themselves to seek the changes from mere humanity to God-like humanity. 

2 Corinthians 13:5-8 reads, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?  6 But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates. 7 Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates. 8 For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth".

Adam Clarke's Commentary on 2 Corinthians 13:5 employs a metaphor and it reads like this: 

Try yourselves; pierce your hearts; try yourselves by what I have written, and see whether you retain the true faith of the gospel.  Put yourselves to the test, as you would try gold or silver suspected of adulteration.  No more take that for gospel which is not so than you would take adulterated money for sterling coin.  This is a metaphor taken from testing or assaying adulterated metals.

Are you not full of wisdom and understanding?  And is it not as easy to find out a spurious faith as it is to detect a base coin?  There is an assay and touchstone for both.  Does Jesus Christ dwell in you?  You have His Spirit, His power, His mind, if you are Christians; and the Spirit of Christ bears witness with your spirit that you are the children of God.  And this is the case except ye be reprobates; base counterfeit coin; mongrel Christians.

This change should be a constant, daily duty with the Lord Jesus guarding our hearts instead of our imperfect, tired way of guarding our own heart.

What kind of world would we live in now if all of God's people said this when they awoke every morning?   

Ps. 139:23-24 (KJV)

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting."