Consider The Compassion Of God
March 2026
By: Wayne Boyer - Grace Harbor Church Member
Maybe you’re like me, and you struggle to understand God’s love toward you, which leads to spiritual insecurities in your life. I understand what the Bible says, but I somehow cannot imagine how it is true for me—yet I would definitely support its truth for others. Perhaps you get stuck focusing on Psalm 51: 3–4, which says, “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned.” David’s confession did not stop here, but if you’re like me, you may frequently find yourself idling here in despair. There are many reasons we become insecure in our faith. I will expound on one reason—a lack of understanding God’s character and nature as it relates to His compassion.
Let us consider these passages in Nehemiah. (Neh. 1: 3-4, Neh. 9:3,16-31). In these verses we observe the word or a form of the word compassion at least five times. Compassion may also be properly translated as mercy. Mercy is commonly defined as “withholding punishment that we deserve”. Another definition states it this way, “The compassionate treatment of those in distress, especially when it is within one’s power to punish or harm” (Bible Hub, Topical Encyclopedia). As seen in these passages, mercy is also associated with forbearance and forgiveness (cf. Psalm 145:8–9, Isaiah 55:7, Joel 2:13).
As a I was reading through Nehemiah chapter 9, I was overwhelmed with God’s compassion. You may know, God’s chosen people (the Israelites) rebelled against Him, and He delivered them into the hands of the Babylonian Empire to chastise them through captivity for seventy years. While in captivity, the Babylonian and Assyrian empires were taken over by the Medo-Persian Empire. These are the days of Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah. God gave Nehemiah favor in the eyes of the king, and he became the cupbearer to king Artaxerxes. Later he became the governor of Jerusalem for two terms. In God’s providence, we find that the name Nehemiah means “Jehovah comforts.”
In Nehemiah 1:3–4, we learn the state of Jerusalem along with Nehemiah. “…The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire. When I (Nehemiah) heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” God showed His favor to Nehemiah, and he was given full permission to lead a third wave of exiles back to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall around the city.
At the completion of the wall, Nehemiah 9:3 says, “They read from the book of the law of the LORD their God for a fourth of the day; and for another fourth they confessed and worshiped the LORD their God.” Chapter 9 expounds on the people’s worship and confession. As I meditated on this chapter it moved me to consider more deeply God’s compassion.
As a personal exercise, I made a table with two columns: the title of column one was “The Sinfulness of Israel (Man)” and the title of column two was “The Faithfulness of God.” Starting with verse 16, I wrote a verse in each row of the table, either under “Man” or under “God,” whichever the verse applied to. This gave me a good visual of the gap between man and God and the drastic nature of our character compared to His. As I understood His character to a rebellious people, I was overwhelmed and thankful for His compassion.
The verses describing Israel (and us) are not flattering. They portray a people who act arrogantly and stubbornly, who refuse to listen to God’s commands and forget Him. They appoint a leader of their own choosing, create for themselves a calf of molten metal, and blaspheme the name of God. They are disobedient and rebellious, casting God’s law behind their backs and killing the prophets. Growing complacent in God’s peace, they do evil before Him. They “turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck, and would not listen—they would not give ear” (9:29–30). They have broken every commandment of God!
On the other hand, verses 17–31 present a beautiful and striking description of God’s character. Nehemiah declares that God is a loving God of forgiveness—gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness—who does not forsake His people. In His great compassion, God did not abandon Israel in the wilderness. Instead, He gave them His good Spirit to instruct them, provided manna and water to sustain them, and ensured that for forty years they lacked nothing. He gave them kingdoms and peoples, multiplied their children, and brought them into the land He had promised their fathers. He subdued nations before them and placed their enemies into their hands. They took possession of the land and enjoyed every good thing, delighting in His great goodness. Yet even when they fell into distress, God heard their cries from heaven and, according to His compassion, raised up deliverers to rescue them. Time and again He saved them, patiently bearing with them for many years and warning them by His Spirit through the prophets. In His great compassion, He did not make an end of them or forsake them, for He is a gracious and compassionate God.
So when we find ourselves idling on the presence of sin in our life, let us follow the pattern we see in Nehemiah 9 and give praise to our Creator and sustainer of life, confessing our sin, and appealing to His nature, remembering that He is a great, mighty, and awesome God who keeps covenant and lovingkindness (9:31). He is a God of forgiveness who has rescued sinful man manifold times over thousands of years. Christ died to sin once for all (Rom. 6:10)—He has broken the power of sin over those who belong to Him, and His death has covered all our sins for all our lives. He has also placed His Spirit in us as our Comforter and teacher, assuring us that we are His (cf. Rom 8:16).
In his commentary, Matthew Henry says, “Let all remember that pride and obstinacy are sins which ruin the soul. But it is often as hard to persuade the broken-hearted to hope, as formerly it was to bring them to fear. Is this thy case? Behold this sweet promise, A God ready to pardon! Instead of keeping away from God under a sense of unworthiness, let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. He is a God ready to pardon.”
The truth is, we all sin and we all deserve punishment: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4–7, NASB-95).
May these truths help us to battle the insecurities brought about by our ignorance and our sin, and to rest more confidently in the compassion of a God, through Christ, whose love is not in question.
No child of God sins to that degree as to make himself incapable of forgiveness..—John Bunyan
Disclaimer: This document has been edited for grammar and structure using AI technology. No new thoughts or ideas have been introduced in the editing process; all content remains the original work of the author.
