With Compassion

I have been thinking much about what church should be like in these end-time days, and I have been impacted by just two words “with compassion”. ‘Compassion’ is probably the most powerful word used in Scripture to describe the ministry of Jesus – “when he saw the crowds he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt 10:36).

And so, in Matthew 11, we read how he then sent the disciples out to do the same as Jesus and have compassion on the harassed and helpless. This is the first instruction in the Scriptures describing what is a primary function of the church. An instruction which has its origin in Isaiah’s prophetic words “heal the broken-hearted and set the captives free” (Isaiah 61:1) and which was taken up in the great commission, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations – teaching them to do all the things that I have taught you to do” (from Matt. 28:18-20).

If we are to take these words of Scripture at face value, and apply them to our understanding of church, then we have no option but to recognize that a congregation that has no compassion is like a self-centred Christian group that meets once a week for spiritual entertainment.

On the other hand, an outward looking congregation that operates “with compassion” will soon become a “hospital”, where the ‘harassed and helpless’ will discover hope and healing. I have never forgotten the Pastor who, in all seriousness, told me that he didn’t want the healing ministry in his church because it would create too much of a mess! He had completely missed the point of what a church should be.

Some of our UK hospitals are now in such overwhelm that they are appointing ‘corridor doctors’ whose sole function is to treat those in an overflow of need, for whom there is no bed and no room in a hospital ward. People are desperate for the help and the time has surely come when the local church must begin to operate like a ’corridor doctor’, gathering together the ‘harassed and helpless’ and acting ‘with compassion’ as they show them the love of Jesus.

Those who have just discovered Jesus at their point of need, and often in desperation, have a lot to teach those long-in-the-tooth believers who have forgotten how utterly life-changing and revolutionary it is to come out of darkness into light! When Jesus has become your everything, nothing else matters. Last Sunday morning a new believer told the others in the meeting we went to, “I don’t understand everything you know about the Bible, but I do know Jesus and he’s everything to me.”

In these past few days our world has undergone revolution. The tectonic plates of geopolitics are moving so fast that the media are breathless trying to keep pace with developments – not just week by week  or month by month – but hour by hour. Everything is being shaken, unbelievably fast and hard.

Just as the old order of things is now in a massive melting pot of the nations, I believe that what we call church is also in a massive melting pot. And in these uncertain days it is only those who are absolutely certain about their faith and trust in Jesus, the unchangeable Rock, who will be equipped to gather together the harassed and the helpless. It may be a time of crisis but it’s also a time of massive opportunity for the Kingdom of God.

We are in the days when Jesus urged us to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field (Matthew 9:37). I am praying that God will pour out such love, with an overflow of compassion, into the hearts of believers, that they will not hesitate to be out there drawing together the sheep who have no shepherd, and caring for them within the security of God’s sheepfold. For, in reality, that is what the first calling of a church should be, a sheepfold for hurting sheep, a place of hope and healing!

This burden on my heart burns deep into my spirit. I’m passionate that every community of believers will become a Gate of Hope for those who, in their desperation, will turn to Him.

Copyright © Peter Horrobin 2025.

Peter Horrobin is the Founder of Gates of Hope International. To find out more about the work please go to www.gatesofhopeinternational.com or, in its abbreviated ‘Go-High’ form: www.gohi.world. To receive regular updates about the work of GOHI, please register your name and email address on the website.

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