Matt.9:36 – Seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

The compassion of Jesus will totally transform your life. It’s His love that stops us in our tracks, changes us from the inside out, and then fills us with compassion for the hurting people that are literally everywhere. Think for a moment at the crowd Jesus was ministering to that day. Many of these poor village people were past the end of their ropes. There were probably farmers dealing with crop failure that day, fishermen with nightmares of empty nets, parents who had been separated from their wayward children, businessmen who could never quite make ends meet, and of course those who were sick with no medical solutions. Things may have changed since the time of Christ, but those same folks are still out there everywhere we go. Here is how Spurgeon describes this scene.

“A great crowd is a demand upon compassion, for it suggests so much sin and need. In this case, the great want was instruction: “they fainted ” for I want of comfort; they “were scattered abroad ” for lack of guidance. They were eager to learn, but they had no fit teachers. “Sheep having no shepherd ” are in an ill plight. Unfed, unfolded, unguarded, what will become of them? Our Lord was stirred with a feeling which agitated his inmost soul. “He was moved with compassion. ” What he saw affected not his eye only, but his heart. He was overcome by sympathy. His whole frame was stirred with an emotion which put every faculty into forceful movement. He is even now affected towards our people in the same manner. He is moved with compassion if we are not.”

Now here is what Matthew was getting at when he recorded this story in his gospel. There are hurting people everywhere; many exactly like we were before Jesus stepped into our world. What changed us? It was the compassion of Christ. He called us in and won us. Now His love is literally smoldering inside of us. This compassion awakens us to the desperate and needy all around us. His love compels us to respond somehow. Finally, His love does what it did in us; it makes the people we touch completely whole.