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Saturday, July 21, 2012

Saturday Sermonette - Compassion

I love the people in my Sunday morning Bible study group. Every week they give me blog ideas. Not that they hold up their hands and yell, "Oo! Oo! I have a blog idea!" No, they just keep spouting off these nuggets of wisdom that I just have to think and talk about.

A week ago, we were studying Lesson Two of the Old Testament Survey, Leviticus 19:9-18, 33-37. Every law listed in this section of laws the Jews were to abide by has to do with treating people with compassion, Jews and aliens alike. God admonished His people to be holy, even as He is holy. One of our members, Mike Fleming, said it. He said that we could say, then, that compassion was the essence of holiness.

Wow, what a thought. If we treat others as we want to be treated, that's holiness. If we feed the hungry, that's holiness. If we pray for people needing prayer, that's holiness.

I have always pictured holiness as being as pure and good as God, an unreachable goal. Sure, one we should constantly strive toward, but one that the ribbon across the finish line would always remain unbroken by anyone but Jesus.

However, if we think of each bit of holy attitude as an individual race, perhaps we can break that ribbon each time we love our neighbors as ourselves. Each time we practice the golden rule, we can be holy.

Now, that's a reachable goal. In fact, that's lots of reachable goals.

Thanks, Lord.

2 comments:

Sue Tornai said...

Beautifully said, Anne. Thank you for the encouragement to be holy. In my opinion, you are as close as they come to the finishing line with Jesus just a step ahead. Thank you for all you do for Inspire (and me). Blessings!

Anne Baxter Campbell said...

Oh thank you, Sue--are way too sweet and obviously you don't know me well... but go ahead, spread it on.
I hope you feel much, much better by now. We missed you today. Dee Aspin got to pitch in your place.