Our God is Compassionate

by Brian Kim, Parent and Family Support Coordinator

Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes, and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him.

Matthew 20:34

Last week we introduced a short series on studying Exodus 34:6 and the character of God revealed through this Scripture: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”

For more in depth guidance, we encourage you to check out the Bible Project’s series on the Character of God that also focuses on Exodus 34.

This week we focus in on the compassionate nature of God and how we too can grow in compassion and embody this important part of following Jesus.

Devotion: Our God is Compassionate

Gather your family and read Exodus 34:6. Highlight the word compassionate to your children as the part of God that we are going to focus on today. Compassion can be a hard word to explain, it’s often easier to see what character looks like in order to understand it, so let’s look in our Bibles to help us know what it means to have compassion.

Read Exodus 3:7-8 together. Before going further, set the context of the time of Exodus. Where were the people of Israel at this time? (In Egypt) What were they doing there, were they just traveling through? (No, they ended up as slaves to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt). Was it easy and good to be a slave in Egypt? (No, Pharaoh made them work hard and treated them badly).

So, in the verses we just read, what does it say the people of Israel were doing? (Crying out to God) How does God respond? (He is concerned and is going to rescue them).

Let’s look at an example of Jesus showing compassion as well: read Matthew 20:29-34 together. Who is asking for help here? (The two blind men). How does Jesus respond? (He has compassion and heals them).

So, what do you see about compassion in these two examples? Let your children answer and wonder a bit about this idea. What kind of actions do you see that God & Jesus take when they feel compassion? (They listen, show concern, heal, rescue).

Can you think of a time when you felt compassion from God? What about from someone else? What happened? How did that make you feel? That’s really good.

So one thing that we learned about compassion is that it involves moving closer to the person that is suffering, hurt or sad, then it also means you do something to help that person. Let’s close in prayer and ask God to show us if there is someone in each of our lives that we can be compassionate towards today.

God, thank you that you show us compassion by being close to us, listening to us and caring for us. Help us to do the same for others. We pause now to ask if there is someone that we can love by extending compassion towards him or her. (Pause for a few seconds) We love you God, and choose to follow you and your ways. Amen.