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bigmike

The Touch of Compassion
And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.
Mark 1:40-42
Even after he had sold his ownership stake in the company, Colonel Harlan Sanders remained a spokesman for Kentucky Fried Chicken for years. As a result he often traveled, flying from one town to the next for promotional tours. The story goes that on one of his flights, there was a screaming baby. Despite the best efforts of the mother, the infant continued to wail. Finally Colonel Sanders asked the mother if he could help. He took the child and rocked him to sleep before handing him back to the thankful mother. As the passengers were getting off the plane one of them told him, “We all appreciate what you did for us.” Colonel Sanders replied, “I didn't do it for us. I did it for the baby.”
It is not possible to have genuine compassion for others without doing something about it. While we will not be able to meet every need we see around us, we will be moved to action if we have the kind of love and compassion for others that Jesus did. Rather than turning away or even fleeing in terror when He met a man with leprosy—the common responses of the time—Jesus reached out and touched him. He did not just heal him with a spoken word; He touched him.
The compassion Jesus showed was not just a surface emotion, passing quickly until His interest turned to something else. It moved Him to respond. Seeing the need, Jesus met it. We should do the same.
We cannot say we have true compassion unless we are moved to take action by it.
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