Then Jesus….said, I have compassion on the multitude.
—Matthew 15:32
Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?
—Matthew 18:33
On three different occasions Matthew tells us that our Lord was moved with compassion for the multitude. His whole life was a manifestation of the compassion with which He looked on the sinner, and of the tenderness with which He was moved at the sight of misery and sorrow. In this, He was the true reflection of our compassionate God, of the father who, moved with compassion toward his prodigal son, “fell on his neck, and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).
For the Lord Jesus, the will of God consisted not in certain things that were forbidden or commanded. No, He had entered into that which truly forms the very heart of God’s will—to lost sinners, He should give eternal life.
Because God Himself is love, His will is that love should have full scope in the salvation of sinners. The Lord Jesus came down to earth in order to manifest and accomplish this will of God. He did not do this as a servant obeying the will of a stranger. In His personal life and in all His dispositions, He proved that the loving will of His Father to save sinners was His own.
Dear followers of Christ, let the will of the Father be to you what it was to your Lord. The will of the Father in the mission of His Son was the manifestation of divine compassion in the salvation of lost sinners. God’s will is for us what it was for Jesus: the salvation of the perishing. It is impossible for us to fulfill that will except by having, bearing about, and showing in our lives the compassion of our God. The seeking of God’s will must not be only denying ourselves certain things that God forbids and doing certain works that God commands; it must also consist in surrendering ourselves to have the same mind and disposition toward sinners as God has, and that we find our pleasure and joy alone in living for this. By the most personal devotion to each poor, perishing sinner around us, and by our helping them in compassionate love, we can show that the will of God is our will.