Compassion Never Forgets

“For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath.”  —Deuteronomy 4:31

This past summer, I began to radically watch how much and what I eat. I’ve lost 40 pounds, and I know many of you claimed to have found it. My challenge now is to keep it off. I have cut down on salt, and I weigh myself every morning. If I eat just a few pretzels or even a chip or two, I can gain pounds by my morning weigh-in. Funny thing about salt; it works best when it isn’t noticed. If there is no salt in the food, there is a missing flavor. If you add too much salt and notice it, you have added too much. Just the right amount, not too much, not too little, makes the food taste just right. Also, our bodies need salt to live, but too much salt leads to high blood pressure and water retention.

Like most of life, a delicate balance is needed. One of the traits of God’s character is a delicate balance between God’s holiness and God’s love. One cannot control the other, but one cannot exist without the other. God is angry about sin, but loves sinners so much that He gave His only Son for us. Human beings struggle to balance holiness and love. In striving to be holy, we often become prideful and judgmental. In our desire to love, we tend to overlook blatant sinfulness in others’ lives and offer cheap grace like a swinging door.

The first of the two great commandments instructs us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength…Mark 12:30. That’s passion. When we get it, we often over get it. We become so focused on doing things our own way that we believe it is the only way. We become testy when other Christians suggest that there are other ways to love and serve God.

Remember James and John, nicknamed the Sons of Thunder, who wanted to call fire down from heaven to destroy the Samaritan’s for their lack of hospitality toward Jesus. Jesus replied, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them” (Luke 9:55 NKJV). The disciples were passionate, but often misguided.

God is a passionate God. God created the universe, our world, and human beings with a plan and purpose. In fulfilling that purpose, God has bound Himself to us in love. Even though we forget God’s love and rebel against His plans, God never forgets His promises. God is merciful and does not forget the covenant. Deuteronomy 4 describes that covenant in verse 20, “But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own possession, as today.”

Deuteronomy 4:21 and 24 reveals God as, “a consuming fire, a jealous God,” who is angry over sin. The balance to God’s character is found in verse 31, “God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget.” Compassion will not abandon a lost sheep, but will leave the 99 to go and search for one lost soul. Compassion does not destroy those who have fallen; rather, compassion comes to seek and to save the lost. Compassion never forgets. Compassion remembers the hurting and remembers God’s promises.

God is a compassionate God who is passionate about saving fallen human beings. Living among fallen humanity, it is difficult for us to balance holiness and love. But in Jesus Christ, we can be sure that God appeased His anger with the sacrifice of the sinless Son of God. Yes, God loves you and me that much. If God is a God of all compassion, shouldn’t we, His children, remember the least, the last, and the lost?