The biblical reality of total depravity shouldn’t push us away from showing compassion to sinners, but should push us too them. We know the world is wicked and that’s even more reason to show compassion; not only because we, too, can act wicked at times—since we’re still in our flesh—but we once too were opposed to God.

Note: I recently taught on this for equipping hour at my church, so I wanted to share it with you all. It also happens to be day 1 in my book Daily Calvinism: A 30-Day Devotional Connecting the Doctrines of Grace with Everyday Life.

What were you like before God saved you? Were there sins in your life that were so grotesque, so awful, so embarrassing that you look back and it makes you sick thinking you did or said such things? I think we can all relate to that, no matter the severity of the sin. We all rebelled against God in our own ways; we all sinned against the Lord in various fashions. In the world’s eyes, some sins seem less dramatic than others, but all sins have one thing in common: they are against God, and that is what makes it so severe.

Our unrighteousness, inherited from Adam, plays an important role in how we understand a word today that has been hijacked. That word is compassion. With the knowledge of total depravity in this sin-stricken world, we must have a firm, biblical grasp on what it means to be compassionate. Let’s think about that for a moment.

Like love and tolerance, the word compassion has been distorted to mean something complete different than the real definition. (This has happened to empathy as well!) Compassion, to many in society today, has morphed into something akin to an unconditional affirmation of someone’s desires. They say, “We ought to have compassion on those transitioning” for example. Sure, absolutely. But I don’t believe we have the definition of compassion in mind. For many on the progressive side of culture, compassion is shown merely by approving and affirming. No questions asked. And if we don’t go along for the ride, well, shame on us.

There’s a point to this. Christian, biblical compassion doesn’t look like unconditionally affirming someone. It doesn’t look like incessantly agreeing with another person. Compassion looks like what Jesus did, for He did provide us a few examples.

Jesus had compassion for his friends and wept alongside them at the grave of Lazarus (Jn. 11:33-35). Jesus healed large crowds because he felt compassion toward them due to their suffering (Matt. 14:14). Even more, he saw the crowd was like sheep without a shepherd, and that caused his compassion to grow for them.

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