"Therefore BE compassionate just as your Father also IS compassionate."
We are To BEcome compassionate just as He IS! It is upon this basis that Paul makes his appeal -
"Therefore I urge you brethren, through the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."
We are to BE compassionate just as the Father IS and lay our life down for others just as Jesus laid His life down for us.
We are to become a sacrifice unto God that He can use to show His compassion on the ungrateful and wicked people in "our lives."
It involves no great sacrifice to love those who love us, no laying down our rights, no real pain.
It is a blessing to give to those who appreciate our kindness and thank us for our service; but to be compassionate to ungrateful and evil men requires that we endure open hostility and rejection rather than just run away from pain.
To be compassionate just as He is compassionate will require that we share in the fellowship of His sufferings. The fire for this burnt offering will likely come from our own intense pain. Loving those who abuse us requires laying our own memories, emotions, and self preservation, upon the altar - this is denying ourself and taking up our cross - FOR OTHERS!
God does not need our sacrifice, He is already complete in Himself; but wicked and ungrateful men do need us to become as compassionate towards them as our Father is.
"Compassion" is a Latin term and means to "suffer with". A living sacrifice must be willing to SUFFER WITH Christ in loving men. Living SACRIFICES must become living SUFFERERS! This suffering is the baptism of fire that falls upon the sacrifice and makes it well pleasing to God.
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