Redemptive Compassion

Would you love to see some positive change in your life? Maybe you wish the dynamics of a relationship were healthier. Maybe you need to get a grip on your finances. Maybe there’s pain in your past that needs processing to help you move forward.

Twice a year Love INC offers courses that can help you grow in relating better with others, with your money, with the world in general, and with yourself. A few years ago, I took the Redemptive Compassion course. As someone in what’s referred to as a “helping” profession, I’m tempted to quickly assess people by how much help they need from the church or how much help they might be able to offer the church. Redemptive Compassion emphasized how God doesn’t value people based on what they can or cannot do; God values people (myself included) simply because he created us and we are imagebearers of him.

In the course textbook, also titled Redemptive Compassion, Lois M. Tupyi writes:

Most of what the world esteems as valuable is in direct contrast to what God values. Success, money, good looks, skills, degrees, status, power, who we know, or who knows us, are all considered important in today’s society. But God’s rating system does not work that way. In fact, most of the people highlighted throughout the Bible would have been termed failures, non-achievers, unimportant, weak, inadequate, dangerous, and useless in our modern culture. At a service I once attended, the speaker shared three points that changed how I [see] people… He challenged us to see people through God’s eyes, to see their value and worth to the God who created them, before we attempt to serve them. He suggested that until we see them as valuable to God, we will not value them appropriately as we work with them. Once we understand their value, we become willing to invest in them – and invest we must if we really want to impact their lives. He closed with this thought: Our investment will produce dividends as they in turn invest in others, returning full circle God’s gift of redemption. Three simple points – see their value, invest in them, and receive a return on the investment.

And then it dawned on me: Isn’t that exactly what Jesus always did? (page 65)

I submitted this for this week’s Rock Valley Bee. I noted that I’ve attended the Redemptive Compassion and the Boundaries classes offered by Love INC, both of which I highly recommend.

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