God feels with (2)
I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.
Mark 8:2–3
God feels with (2)
The Lord Jesus stands ready to feed 4,000 people. They are hungry, and He wants to give them food. Their situation arouses His compassion, as the text says. He sees their hunger and recognises that they will soon be unable to continue on their way. After all, “some of them have come from afar”, setting out early from home and walking many miles to come to Him.
If He were to send them home hungry now at the end of the day, they might starve and die of thirst or perhaps collapse from weakness. After all, He knows every journey through life, every daily routine, and every individual situation. And He not only sees their need and their problems, He also knows the origin of these problems and how they have come about. In His love, He then provides them with bread and fish, so that everyone is filled and there is even plenty left over.
Jesus Christ was human like you and me (but without any sin), meaning that hunger, thirst and tiredness were not at all foreign to Him. He knows what we are like and He knows us through and through. He knows our background, our character, our pathway through life and our inward state. And He is moved with compassion for us – He feels with us: “For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).
Today’s reading: Nehemiah 13:1-14 · Proverbs 17:1-10
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