From Passion to Compassion

UV 3233/10000 From Passion to Compassion
The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until He has fulfilled and until He has accomplished the intent of His heart; in the latter days you will understand this.

Jeremiah 30 v24

God’s anger is righteous. It is called passion. His righteous anger with man’s sin led to the intent of His heart- to find a way to redeem all mankind. He expressed His passion as compassion. Hence, He sent the sinless Son Jesus to fulfill the mission of salvation, to accomplish all that the scriptures had said that He would do. We too are expected to possess passion or righteous anger in our lives and to manifest it as compassion. The same Jesus who drove out merchants, money changers and vendors of various goods and creatures for sacrifice in the Temple of His Father cried out to the Father as He lay nailed and suspended on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

We cannot be lukewarm or disinterested. We need to be passionate about just causes. We need to express righteous anger against the evils in the contemporary world. We need to drive out of our minds and hearts any thought or emotion that is not glorifying the Lord. We need to express our passion against anything that violates the purity of our temples- namely, our bodies and minds. The Lord will heal our wounds- mental, emotional and spiritual. He will bind or bandage it with His word and heal it with the 39 stripes He received from the metallic thongs tied to the Roman whip. His passion or righteous anger made Him refuse to compromise with sin or hamartia or the state of being that comes short of the perfection and justice of God. His compassion caused Him to take the pain and the penalty iupon Himself.

The Lord accomplished all the works for our complete salvation and deliverance as the intent was not of His mind but of His heart. The mind is the seat of reason. The heart is the seat of love. We cannot understand with our minds why Jesus, the Sinless, the Prince of Peace, the Son of God, the Lion of Zion who appeared meek but was absolutely powerful, died on the cross, a death apt for the worst of sinners. We can understand the intent or purpose of God, however, with our hearts. We need to constantly balance reason and love in dealing with people. Our emotions or passion should be aligned behind the intent of our hearts once it is formed. The Lord accomplished for all mankind what no one can individually venture to. He restored us to the glorious image of God in which we were created.