19/06/13

Mercy to Favour, Compassion to Passion

Hosea 1:8 - Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.


In the book of Hosea the Lord speaks about the 3 children of Hosea who symbolize the relationship between the Lord and His people who are far from Him and disobedient to His Law.

God causes the children to be named Jezreel, Loruhamah and Loammi.

Jezreel means God sows, this was the first child
Loammi means not my people, this was the third child
And Loruhamah mentioned in today's message is translated mostly as no mercy, this was the second child.

The Lord was telling His people what He would do with them out of His anger on them. I have spoken about this in my previous message. Today I would concentrate on the second child mentioned in today's message. As I was reading the scripture I went deeper into the name and its meaning. The word Loruhamah is made of 2 Hebrew words 'lo' and 'racham', the first word means no and the second word what I noticed, although is translated as mercy but is not. The word means compassion and comes from the word 'chamal'. The word Hebrew word for mercy is 'checed'.

One would ask, what is the difference between mercy and compassion.

Mercy is to do with ministering to the guilty while compassion does not necessary require the recipient to be guilty. To understand compassion one needs to understand passion.

Passion can be defined as a burning or uncontrollable desire. Compassion on the other hand does not mean opposite of passion but means lack of passion and can be defined somewhat as pity.

Mercy is by which all creation exists. Grace is what came through Jesus Christ and means the required amount of mercy to get the job done. Grace is midway of mercy and favour is the extreme end. Only a son is assured favour always.

From mercy we move to grace when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and when we abide in Him by the help of the Holy Spirit we come into the favour of the Lord (become Sons). From mercy to grace to favour the recipient is directly involved in the change but in the case of compassion to passion the recipient cannot influence the donor in any way, it all depends on the heart of the donor. Even though we cannot claim the compassion or the passion of the Lord, but since we know the Lord is a keeper of His Word we can have confidence to receive it. All we need to abide by the conditions of the promise.

The reason why the Lord got angry with His people and denied them His compassion is because they went spiritual whoring behind other gods.

Like we can move from mercy to grace and grace to favour by believing in Jesus Christ and abiding in His Word, similarly we can move from receiving compassion to passion of the Lord by worship Him and Him alone in Spirit and Truth.
We may not be making physical idols and worshiping them, but even spiritual idols can block us from receiving compassion or moving to passion. Let us not idolize any man, or money, or riches, or status, or job, or respect of men, etc. by make sure the Lord alone is seated on the throne of our hearts.


[ Prayer Starter ]
Lord we pray we not be like people of the world who live on your mercy. We ask You to help us to move from grace to favour by our abiding in your Word with the help of the Holy Spirit and also move from compassion to receiving your passion by our true worship to You and You alone. Help us to seat You alone on the throne of our hearts and put the rest of our world as your footstool...

This prayer we make in Jesus' Name, Amen.


[ Reference ]
Exodus 20:4-6
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Exodus 2:6 And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.

Romans 9:15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

John 1:17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.


The Word of God was given free to us, therefore we should also share it freely with others.
(All rights are with God)