Doing Good is Academic

By Gary L. Cox

September’s WCFS Calendar saying asks about the goals you are setting for your children. I am convinced that the Christian has a duty to set academic goals that reflect a pursuit of the Kingdom of God.  These goals are derived from the Great Commission. Essentially, believers are charged with the mission to “tarry until I return”. This tarrying is also translated occupy. To occupy means to use the time, space and talents given to us in this life to advance the Kingdom of God. This means that we “preach” the Gospel by every means at hand.

However, dashing off to Africa is not what God has in mind. Rather, believers must cultivate a compassion for the lost as the first step. Matthew 9:36-38 tells us that, “When [Jesus] saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then said he unto his disciples, The harvest truly [is] plenteous, but the laborers [are] few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.”

Cultivating compassion is the first step toward preaching the Gospel. There is a necessity to first recognize the nature of the need for those to whom we might preach. Seeing the need stirs up compassion. The second step is prayer. Christ commanded his disciples to pray to the Lord of the Harvest that He would send forth laborers into the harvest field. Prayer focuses our awareness upon God who is the authority and provision for those who have stirred up our Christian compassion. Effective preaching doesn’t spring from ourselves, no matter how compassionate we feel, it comes as a release from the Holy Spirit.

Kingdom ministry comes from prayerful compassion that is satisfied by the leading of the Holy Spirit. This is important because compassion often springs from the heart of those who also may have the means to satisfy its concern but require discernment how best to minister. Compassion leads to practical remedies of importunity. However, those remedies must be groomed by Kingdom purposes.

As a homeschool parent, you play an important role in developing the academic goals of your children by noting what stimulates a child’s compassion and prayerfully discerning how to conform your training to release the gifts your child has into practical Kingdom works. Good works and compassion are inseparable.

In the Old Testament, the first Hebrew word translated compassion (KJV) primarily means to spare: chamal, compassion; to spare, pity, have compassion on.

This word is first used of Pharaoh’s daughter who spared Moses from death in the Nile River. Chamal illustrates the contrast of the helpless need of the baby Moses and capacity to spare him by Pharaoh’s daughter. When she had opened the basket, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children. (Exodus 2:6)

Here we see a practical application. Pharaoh’s daughter spared Moses from the certain death imposed by her father. The infant was helpless and was without capacity to remedy his own situation. The compassion of Pharaoh’s daughter was such that she took upon herself the remedy to spare the innocent, helpless  baby. This compassion lasted for his entire childhood. This demonstrates that one aspect of compassion is to spare someone from importunity by the sacrifice and cost to another, whom cannot be repaid.

However, this compassion began really in the heart of his mother who reached the point of incapacity to care for the child. Scripture says that, By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw [he was] a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment. (Hebrews 11:23) After three months, she was thrown upon a last ditch strategy of baby, basket, bullrushes & bathing. This in itself was the pitiful acknowledgement of her own powerless importunity. Her desperate surrender was transformed into the power to nurse her own son for hire.

Remember the exhortations of Jesus to apply our kindness to those who cannot repay. Then said he also to him that bade him, When you make a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor [thy] rich neighbors; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when you make a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. (Luke 14:12-14)

How glorious and beautiful is this kind of compassion which is so like the Lord! God carries us in our weakness and importunity upon the sure and tender mercies of David. Is not this what he has called us to, to visit the widows and fatherless in their affliction? (James 1:27)  For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came unto me. (Matt. 25:35-36)

What might be the fruit of such labor? Did Pharaoh reap the reward? Did his daughter? The seed sown in true faith yielded eternal fruit in its eventual course. We do not labor in vain. Moses inherited the same compassion by which he was spared. He saw injustice for its evil and sought to spare those under its grip. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. (Hebrews 11:24) This is the heritage of the compassionate whose legacy is to spare those who have no means of their own to save themselves.

Is not this what care for those in any form of broken-body bondage looks like? To spare the infirm from the damages of their infirmity is to minister true compassion. (This also helps to set limits on the extent of proper help: It is not compassion to spare someone from consequences that is within their own ability to remedy on their own behalf.)

Compassion is the freewill grant of care given by one who is able to one who is not. The compassion-giver is operating voluntarily, beyond regular duty and not by compulsion, except as compelled in love by the Lord. God commands us to be rich in good works. These are the good works that have been foreordained that we should walk in them. These works are the heritage of the saints and by them we shall receive the rewards of our service in heaven.

In your homeschool planning, make plenty of room for your children to exercise true compassion in the everyday pursuits of life. Let them look upon the needs of others and develop compassion for them. Allow the needs of others to draw out empathy and prayer. Seek God and He will direct how your family might relieve the afflicted.

We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves, Let every one of us please [his] neighbor for [his] good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. (Romans 15:1-3) He that would desire long life, let him run from evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. (1Pe 3:11) Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does [it] not, to him it is sin. (Jam 4:17)

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom [be] glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21)

[note:  originally published in the October 2009 Family Heritage Developer]