Experiencing the Heart of God

Dannah Gresh: If you could describe God in a few words, what characteristics would you choose? Well, here’s how one of the writers of the Bible described God.

• Compassionate
• Merciful
• Slow to anger
• Overflowing with faithful love

Hmm, that sounds so comforting, doesn’t it? Now, this writer didn’t just think those words up. He was in God’s presence when I believe He felt the compassion of God. I’ll tell you who the writer was and why I think He experienced those qualities of God in today’s episode of Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh, and I’m so glad you could be with me today. 

I’m hoping you won’t just hear that God is compassionate and merciful today but that you’ll experience it in your life.

From Genesis to Revelation, the compassion of God leads Him in love. He seeks us out so that through salvation through His Son, He can be near us forever. The compassion of God must not be missed in the pages of Scripture. So today, myself, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, and Erin Davis will each open the Scriptures to help us get a hold of the compassionate heart of God today. 

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First, let’s just dive into that passage I’ve already mentioned. It’s from Exodus 34. Does that give you a clue who wrote it? Yes, Moses! I’m going to read verses 5–8. This is what happens just after Moses cut the stones to receive the ten commandments and then climbed up Mount Sinai to see what was next.

Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and he called out his own name, Yahweh. The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out,

“Yahweh! The Lord!
   The God of compassion and mercy!
I am slow to anger
   and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.
I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations.
   I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin.
But I do not excuse the guilty.
   I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren;
the entire family is affected—
   even children in the third and fourth generations.”

Moses immediately threw himself to the ground and worshiped. (NLT)

Undone by the presence of God, Moses worships. Have you ever experienced that? Where you just spontaneously worship the Lord? Oh, I have, several times, though they are rare treasures in my walk with Christ.

Here’s why I say Moses didn’t justhear those words, but felt those qualities in God. You see, when we are around humans, we tend to feel and sense and experience their character. Take, for example, my mom. She’s the most compassionate person I know. When I am in her presence, I feel her readiness and willingness to love and serve. You cannot be in her presence without sensing and experiencing her compassion. So, how much more would we see, feel, and experience God’s character in His presence.

That's what happened to Moses. So, what did he experience? The Hebrew word for compassion is rakum. This word is related to the Hebrew word for womb, rekhem. Right away, I see the invitation to consider the nurturing qualities of a mother.

One of my favorite verses in the Old Testament is Isaiah 49:15 where God gives us a picture of Him being like that of a mother. It reads:

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

This verse portrays the Israelites, God’s people, as a helpless baby in need of mother’s milk! In essence, God's saying I’m there for you the way a mother is there for a babe not yet weaned! It’s almost unfathomable that a mother would ignore her hungry baby. It’s unthinkable. But it does happen. But know this: God has not forgotten you. He will not and He cannot. His rakum forbids it!

If you keep reading Isaiah, the ultimate compassion of God is the Son, Jesus, entering into the suffering and need and dependance of humanity. Sharing in it with us. Did you know the “com” at the beginning of the word compassion means “with.” God came to be “with” us in the form of Jesus for the ultimate rescue from suffering. For our ultimate rescue. For yours!

Did Moses sense all of that in God’s presence on Mount Sinai? Did He feel the nurturing qualities of God? His readiness to love and serve and meet every need of total dependance? Well, consider this: when the Israelites were suffering and oppressed in Egypt—events that occurred before Moses experienced this encounter with God—God heard their cries for help. He came to their aid. When they were in the desert wandering in the wilderness, He send manna and quail. There were times He provided water, fresh water to drink. The Israelites experienced the rakum of God—His compassion. 

And now, here for the first time at the top of Mount Sinai, God reveals to Moses, "I am the God of compassion and mercy!"

Of course He is! Moses had seen that with His own eyes—in the desert, in Egypt. And now he is in the compassionate presence of the great I AM. And He knew it was true! He “immediately threw himself to the ground and worshiped.”

Have you experienced God like that in your life? Has He heard your cries? Has He fed you and provided for your practical needs? When He’s bid you come to quiet places did you go, allowing Him to reveal Himself to you? 

This is your invitation. Take inventory of the times God has been there with you. Find time and space—like Moses—to get away from all your responsibilities and go into the presence of the compassionate God.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve counted up the ways God has cared for you, but I do know you’ve probably been rebellious like the Israelites. You see, the Israelites were so good at grumbling and rebelling, they even built other golden images to worship in spite of God’s tender care and provision. Have you been there? If so, note that God also told Moses, “I am slow to anger.” That’s part of His compassion. Because He is slow to anger, He is merciful. Mercy, you see, is a fruit of compassion.

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Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, talking about one of her favorite phrases in Luke chapter 1. Verse 78 reads: “because of the tender mercy of our God.” Let’s listen.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I don’t want to bog you down with Greek lessons here, but the word mercy is one word. Then the word tender is the word splanchnon in the Greek: s-p-l-a-n-c-h-n-o-n. It’s a word, the root of it from which we ultimately get our word spleen. It’s an inner part.

The King James Version of the Bible actually translates this phrase when it appears in a way that’s kind of unseemly. We don’t have it in our more modern translations. It talks about bowels of mercy. Do you remember reading that—maybe when you were a kid—and thinking, “What are bowels of mercy?” I mean that just sounds like something you don’t say in public.

But that’s actually a really literal translation of this concept. The mercy of God—God’s mercy which is referred to five times in Luke chapter one; twenty-seven times in the New Testament—God’s mercy that is extended to alleviate the misery caused by sin. But what kind of mercy is it?

It’s tender mercy. And that word splanchnon, tender mercy, splanchnon mercy is often translated “affection; compassion.” It refers to the inner parts of the body. You see, the Hebrews in those days thought of the heart, the emotions, as being the innermost part of you, the part that feels most deeply.

So it is what we would call the bowels. It’s something that’s deep down under the surface. It’s buried. It’s what a mother feels for a child that might be in danger or might be hurting or might be sick or needy. It’s this mother’s heart.

In fact, I said to someone the other day, “You know, I think mothers probably understand as well or better than anyone because they have this intense feeling for their children. Even those women who didn’t think they ever wanted to be moms or didn’t think they’d ever be a good mom or weren’t natural with children, didn’t like babysitting other people’s children, when they get their own child there’s something in that mother’s heart that just loves that child, that yearns with compassion."

Do you moms know what I’m talking about? That is the heart of God, the tender mercy of God. That’s the kind of compassion God has toward His people. That’s what motivates God to forgive our sins. That’s the context of this passage—to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins because of the splanchnon, the deep-seated, tender yearning with compassion of God toward His people.

It motivates God to not only see our need, but to do something about it. You see, our sins never could have been forgiven by God’s justice, so God extended mercy. And it wasn’t just mercy. It was tender-hearted, deeply felt compassion and affection and mercy toward us as sinners.

Now God displayed that kind of affection and compassion toward us. So when Jesus came to earth, He is the exact likeness and image of God. He was the Son of God in the flesh. And it’s to be expected that Jesus would have displayed that same kind of affection and compassion and yearning toward needy people. That’s what you see all through the gospels.

I’m amazed at how many instances there are. Let me share several with you. For example, in Luke chapter 7. The widow whose son had just died? Jesus had come upon the funeral procession. And it says in the NIV, it’s translated “his heart went out to her” (v. 13). 

He was moved with compassion. He had tender mercy toward this woman. In Matthew chapter 14 we read just following the incident where John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod. The disciples came and told Jesus. "And when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds saw it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore . . .” (vv. 13–14).

Now he had gone to grieve, to be alone with His heavenly Father, mourning the death, the martyrdom of His cousin, John. But He gets on shore and there’s this crowd that had followed Him there, and what did He do? He had compassion on them—splanchnon.

So what did He do for them? “He saw their need, and he healed their sick” (v. 14). That splanchnon, that compassion, that mercy of God made Him sensitive to our needs and our affliction. The splanchnon, the tender mercy of God always moves Him to do something about our need.

You see the same concept in Matthew chapter 15—just a chapter later—where the crowds came to Him and they brought the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at His feet and He healed them.

Then verse 32, “Jesus called His disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have had nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.’”

So Jesus had this splanchnon, this deep-seated bowels of mercy, compassion toward this hungry crowd. So what did He do? He made lunch. He took the loaves and fishes and fed that five thousand. He did something about their need.

You see in Matthew chapter 20, two blind men sitting by the roadside outside of Jericho. They heard Jesus passing by and they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us” (v. 30). And Jesus stopped and called them—these blind men. He said, “What do you want me to do?” They said, “Lord, we want our eyes to be opened” (v. 34 paraphrased). Moved with compassion, splanchnon, bowels of mercy, intense inner affection. Jesus did something.

What did He do? He touched their eyes and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him.

In Mark chapter 1 you see a leper who came to Jesus, falling on his knees before Him, beseeching Him saying, “Lord, if you are willing you can make me clean” (v. 40 paraphrased). Moved with compassion, splanchnon, tender mercy, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched the unclean man and said, “I am willing, be cleansed" (v. 41 paraphrased). 

You see it in the story that Jesus told in Luke 10 about a man going down to Jericho. He fell among robbers who stripped Him and beat Him and departed leaving Him half dead; how a Levite and a priest passed by that way. They saw the man, but they just kept right on going.

Then there was a Samaritan who as he journeyed came to where this poor man was. When he saw him, he had splanchnon; he had compassion; he was moved with compassion.

"He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him up on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him (v. 35). Now the passage goes on to refer to the Samaritan, the Good Samaritan, as the one who showed him mercy. It’s the same two words that we see in Luke 1—the tender mercy of our God.

You see it in the heart of the father of the prodigal son. When his son comes back, repentant, his father saw him when he was still a long way off. He felt compassion, splanchnon.

And what did he do? He ran; he embraced him; he kissed him; he restored him. He did something about the miserable condition that his prodigal son was in.

So we see that Jesus came to this earth and all the time, everywhere He went—with crowds, with individuals, with lepers, with blind people, with prostitutes, with anybody who had a need—He had splanchnon, tender mercy, compassion, intense affection, a heart full of tender mercy.

It was the heart of God toward the afflicted, toward the needy, and toward the sinful. It was the heart that moved Him to do something about the condition.

Dannah: Isn’t it amazing that God has a heart of compassion toward us? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth just gave us several examples of where we see that throughout Scripture. (She even gave us a little Greek lesson to go with my Hebrew lesson!) 

Now, how do we reflect the compassion of God? I mean, we are here on this earth as His ambassadors. We represent God. That must include being compassionate and merciful. Well, Erin Davis is going to hone in on a story about the compassion of Jesus in action. She’ll share how we can take that lesson and learn from it to serve others. Let’s listen as Erin teaches from Luke chapter 7.

Erin Davis: Jesus is a compassionate God, and we see Him demonstrate compassion many, many, many, many, many, many times in the Gospels. But I think this story, the widow of Nain, is such a sweet example of His compassion.

So let’s look at Luke 7:11–17. 

Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.

And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.””

So there’s no doubt that this situation is hopeless. Let’s think about the woman’s circumstances for just a moment. She’s certainly grieved by the death of her son, the kind of pain I hope I’ll never experience and just can’t even imagine. But the situation was a lot more desperate than just a woman who was burying her son.

The Bible tells us this is her only son, and it also tells us that she is a widow. So at some time, previous to this, she lost her husband, and now she’s losing her son. This is a worst case scenario. This is the kind of stuff that wakes you up in the middle of the night that you hope will never happen to you, and it’s happening to her.

She had no husband, so the responsibility for her financial and physical needs would then be transferred to her son, and now she’s burying her son. Not only did she have the gut-wrenching loss of two men that she loved to deal with, but she’d been left financially destitute. The situation was as hopeless as it gets.

So, Luke 7:13–17:

And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”

Now, we have the benefit of knowing Scripture and knowing about the resurrection, so we’ve become strangely familiar with Jesus raising people from the dead. But that’s not their situation.

Imagine this: Jesus walks up to a corpse and starts talking to him, and then it gets really weird because in verse 15, the corpse talks back. “And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.”

I believe this is one of the most tender moments of compassion in all of the Bible. He gives the boy—and I don’t care how old this man was, he was still his mama’s boy—He gives the boy back to his mama.

It was a huge crowd of people. Remember, it was a merger of two crowds. It was a merger of the crowd that was already following Jesus and then a merger of this crowd that had come to the funeral. So these two huge crowds merge, and in that sea of people, his mama was the one who needed him most.

Yes, Jesus’ power was put on display in this encounter, but even more than that, the widow of Nain had an encounter with Jesus’ compassion. He showed great compassion to her in that moment.

What is compassion? I would define compassion as simply: Love in action. It’s doing something about your love. And certainly Jesus loved this widow, loved her son. So He didn’t just stand back with the crowds, watch, and then go, “Oh, I wish I could do something about that.” He was moved to action.

I myself am a compassionate baker. When somebody’s hurting, I’m very likely to drop off cinnamon rolls. It may not help them at all, but I feel like at least I’m doing something. I think cinnamon rolls help just about every situation that exists. A lot of times cinnamon rolls is not really what they need. That certainly would not be what this mama would have needed. She needed what only Jesus could do, which was to bring her son back to life.

But so often we offer each other sympathy—a little pat on the back, a little card. But that’s not compassion. That’s just sympathy.

And I think a lot of times when people are hurting, we don’t know what to do, and so we don’t do much. But compassion says, “I don’t know what to do, but I’m going to do something.” So that’s what Jesus demonstrates here when He’s putting love in action.

We can be so thankful that Jesus puts His love in action in our lives in much bigger ways. Jesus was moved by the tears of the widow of Nain just like He was moved by the tears of Mary and Martha. And don’t you love in Scripture when Jesus is moved? Don’t you love the hope that we can move Him, we can affect Him with what’s going on in our lives, with our prayers, with our needs? That’s what we see in Scripture.

I love how Psalm 56:8 describes the Lord’s compassion toward us: “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?”

God sees our tears and is moved with compassion by our pain. I’m very comforted by the image that He collects my tears in a bottle. I would need a very big bottle. I’m a crier. It’s okay. But that’s the image that Scripture gives us. He sees you, and He’s collecting those tears in a bottle, and He writes it all in His book.

He doesn’t ask us to pretend like everything is okay, but He has a plan to heal what is broken. I take such comfort in that.

Revelation 21:4 says, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

He can say to us, “Don’t cry,” because the day is coming when all will be set right.

He sees our pain, and He has a plan to set things right. And that’s so comforting. He is a compassionate God, and He wants to be moved to action for the things that grieve us.

Now, this widow’s story has a happy ending, but I want us to consider when something or someone we love has to stay buried, and sometimes that’s the reality. On the day this mama saw her son brought back to life, it’s likely that another mama saw her son go into the grave. And that doesn’t seem fair. Where is the compassionate God in that situation?

Jesus promises that a time is coming when He will wipe away all of our tears, but He does not promise to take away everything that causes us pain right now, and that is a hard truth. It can be especially hard when we have to bury something, as in give it up forever.

And it doesn’t have to be just burying a person. It can be burying a dream or burying a situation that you thought would get fixed and it never did or burying a relationship or burying a hope you had for your children or burying anything that you have to put into the ground and go, “It’s dead. It’s buried.”

When we’re standing at the casket of something that we have to bury, we go, “Where’s Your compassion now, Jesus? Why are You not moved to action in this situation?” But the bottom line is: He’s compassionate. That’s why you have to know who He is because you have to know that whether I feel like it or not, He is compassionate. Whether I feel like it or not, He is God. Whether I feel like it or not, He’s being a true friend to me in this situation.

So when you’re standing at the casket of something you have to bury, it’s good to be reminded that God is compassionate. The fact that He chose not to raise a person or relationship or an opportunity from the dead is not evidence that He is not a compassionate God.

You have no idea how He is going to be moved to action in your situation next week, next month, next year, next decade. You have no idea how He’s going to put His love for you into action down the road. So you can’t make a judgment of whether or not He’s a compassionate God just because you stand at the casket of something that you love.

In those moments when something we love must stay buried, we can cling to James 5:11, which says:

Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

He is compassionate. It is who He is. It is who He always will be. He will always demonstrate love in action toward us. 

Dannah: Even in the hardest times, Jesus meets us with His never ending compassion. You can live in expectation of that! Such a good reminder from Erin Davis. 

We’ve rolled up our sleeves to study the compassion of God today—complete with Hebrew and Greek language lessons! And my producer just told me that the word "compassion" is Latin. I hope you feel compelled to both experience God’s compassion and to pass it on!

How does what you learned today move you to action? Maybe you need to make a list of all the ways God has shown His compassion to you? Maybe you need to nestle up in the presence of God to consider this character quality of God? Or maybe He’s bringing to mind someone who needs you to be His compassion in action. 

I have something to help you learn more about all of this—a booklet by Erin Davis. With your gift of any amount this month, we want to bless you with a copy of Uncommon Compassion: Revealing the Heart of God. You’ll explore more instances of the compassion of Jesus, and you’ll become more aware of His mercies in your own life. 

Just request your copy of Uncommon Compassion when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, click on today’s episode, and make a donation.

There is so much to talk about when it comes to the compassion of God that we’re going to stay on this theme all month long. On Monday morning, join me on the Revive Our Hearts flagship podcast. Nancy will start off next week by taking us to a place in Psalms that describes what it means to have a heart of compassion. You won’t want to miss it. 

And next week on Revive Our Hearts Weekend, we’ll keep pressing in to how we can show compassion to others. Join me for some compelling stories and teaching on "Loving the Lost."

I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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