Christ literally walked in our shoes and entered into our affliction. Those who will not help others until they are destitute reveal that Christ's love has not yet turned them into the sympathetic persons the gospel should make them.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of empathy and action towards helping others based on Christ's example of compassion.
Timothy Keller highlights that true understanding and compassion require active engagement in the struggles of others, as demonstrated by Christ's own experiences. He suggests that individuals who wait until they themselves are in need before extending help exhibit a lack of genuine empathy and do not fully embrace the transformative love that the gospel intends to instill within them.
In practice
In a sermon about compassion, this quote can emphasize the need for community service.
Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there.
Only in Jesus Christ do we see how the untamable, infinite God can become a baby and a loving Savior. On the cross we see how both the love and the holiness of God can be fulfilled at once.
All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause.
While your character flaws may have created mild problems for other people, they will create major problems for your spouse and your marriage.
To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.
God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we're not yet what we will be, we're also no longer what we used to be.
We who follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad feel that when you try and pass integration laws here in America, forcing white people to pretend that they are accepting black people, what you are doing is making white people act in a hypocritical way.
I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good, wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. It is a painful climb, but each step upwards makes me feel stronger and fit for the next.
She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.
When men speak ill of thee, live so that nobody will believe them.
Never to wrong others takes one a long way towards peace of mind.
All things are inconstant except the faith in the soul, which changes all things and fills their inconstancy with light.
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