Today we celebrate the resurrection power of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. What a blessing in knowing that the same spirit and power that raised Him from the dead dwells in me and anyone who seeks Him. In one of my reflections this week, I was drawn over and over to His first word on the cross, “Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do”. Luke 23:34(ESV). My heart has been deeply burdened with a heightened level of compassion especially within the last few weeks. I could not discern why? While I’ve been personally and professionally tasked with so much and I feel like I can use 40 hours in a day instead of 24 hours, the days that led up to my birthday on April 01 were filled with beautiful encounters. By the way, I was so blessed on my birthday and I think I will make a declaration to celebrate my birthday at least once per month :). I am deeply indebted to my family, friends, acquaintances, admirers and all at large who showered me with love on my birthday. It was overwhelming but real. God bless you all and thank you from the bottom of my heart.
So, I got my answers this Easter on why I was feeling the overwhelming sense of compassion and forgiveness towards people in these past weeks.
The spirit of God is a compassionate spirit and when He pours out His spirit on you, there’s an overwhelming sense of compassion that stirs up inside of you towards people. It increases as you get more and more intimate with Him. I found myself praying even for people that had hurt me in the past, asking God to forgive them and show them mercy. It felt strange but my spirit was led to these kinds of prayers all week. I even went out of my way to call someone to let them know that I forgive them for any and everything. They were deeply overwhelmed and were so touched and grateful. This was quite contrary to how I have felt prior and how much I prayed to see the full vengeance of the Lord against them. Somehow, I’m losing a part of myself and gaining something more beautiful in return – a heart of genuine compassion and forgiveness.
For so many years, I’ve watched the movie “Jesus of Nazareth” several times. I always cried especially when he got to the cross. I’ve repeatedly heard “Father forgive them…” but never really understood His ability to forgive something so heinous that easily. He gave me an opportunity to experience it this Easter season. I felt the same spirit that empowered Christ to forgive humanity even while they tortured Him and killed him. I was even perusing some digital news from Ghana this morning and saw a reportage of some young men who have committed a deadly crime and immediately my heart broke for them. It was odd, I wanted to be so angry at them but I couldn’t. Rather, I felt sorry and pained for their parents and families of what was to come upon these young men. I prayed for their salvation and also for the victim’s family.
If truly this is what Christ feels when we go wrong, when He is supposed to unleash justice on us but His compassion makes Him show us mercy instead, then I consider it the greatest honor that He will open up my spirit to feel this as well. This is definitely not a unique situation, which means that you can experience it too. I cannot count the many times that someone might offend us, try to hurt us and try to cause us some pain of some sort, but, let’s contend for Christ’s spirit of Compassion and Forgiveness to be able to forgive even before an offense occurs. It’s possible and you and I can do it.
May the goodness and mercy of God follow you this week in all that you do.
God bless you, and thank you for stopping by.
XO!
Lady Abena.