By Jon Walker
This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.’ Zechariah 7:9 (NIV)
Each of us carries a bucket that needs to be filled with love, mercy and compassion, but when no one fills it for us, we tend to dip into the buckets belonging to others in order to fill our own. This is the basic concept of the bestselling book, “How Full Is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life” by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton.
But God’s plan is to keep our buckets overflowing with his love, mercy, and compassion. That way, instead of dipping into the buckets of others, we can use what God has given us to fill their buckets. We can do this in confidence, knowing God’s endless supply of love and compassion will keep our own buckets full.
God gives to us from his inexhaustible supply, and then we’re to give to others the very compassion he gives us. This is the basis for how we show compassion to each other, loving our neighbors as we love ourselves; we fill their buckets with God’s Spirit of grace.
What does this mean?
- Offer others unfailing love and goodness – Because we agree God is full of compassion, we know his goodness and unfailing love will pursue us all the days of our lives, and we will live in the house of the LORD forever. (Psalms 23:6, NLT) What would it look like if you carried a bucket full of God’s compassion to those who need to experience unconditional love and divinely-driven compassion?
- Who needs compassion? – In Zechariah 7:10, God says we should look out for those who are oppressed, such as the widow, the fatherless, the stranger, and the poor. The essence of compassion is we help those who cannot help themselves, and we help those who are unable to ever re-pay us for our efforts.
If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2008 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.