The Shocking Compassion of God, by Kelly Needham

Dannah Gresh: Kelly Needham was getting her kids ready to leave the house. She got a little impatient and raised her voice.

Kelly Needham: We got in the car and I buckled everybody up and had a moment to just breathe while everybody was strapped in. I was going to turn around and apologize to my daughter. Before I could get the words out, this comes from behind: “Mommy, are you going to apologize to me now?” (laughter) Sweet girl! (sarcastically)

And you know what came out of me at that moment? Wrath! I felt anger! But . . .” 

Dannah: Kelly says . . .

Kelly: God is not like us, and He does not respond like us to some of the same circumstances. 

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts for Monday, July 1. I’m Dannah Gresh with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Forgiveness.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: So how do you respond when someone hurts you or treats you badly? Our first impulse might be to lash out in anger, but today we’re going to hear a better way, a compassionate response. 

Throughout this month on Revive Our Hearts, we're going to be focusing on the topic of compassion, and that’s something that can be especially difficult when we’ve been wronged. Stay tuned because later in the program I’m going to tell you about a time I needed to forgive someone who hurt me. I’ll tell you which passage God used to help me do that. 

Kelly Needham is a wife and a mom, she’s an author, and she’s a good friend. She and her husband, Jimmy, live in Texas with their five children. She was part of a gathering we hosted here at Revive Our Hearts that we called The Sisters in Ministry Summit.

These were women who all have writing or speaking ministries of their own. It was such a sweet thing to get together and encourage one another to look into God’s Word as a group and to learn from each other. Today I want to share with you what we heard from Kelly Needham. Let’s listen.

Kelly: We’re going to talk about “The Shocking Compassion of God,” and I’m really excited to talk with you about this. It’s one of my favorite passages in the Bible. But I first want to tell you about a really difficult experience in my life.

My senior year in high school, I got a phone call from one of my dearest friends who lived in my neighborhood. We had grown up playing violin together in orchestra. We went to each others’ houses; we had sleepovers. She called me to let me know that her mom had just been killed in a very tragic car accident! You never forget where you are in those moments.

What was also happening at that time was that I was in a really unhealthy relationship with a guy in high school. He was a Christian, but had just “gone south.” I knew I needed to end it, but I was really afraid because of just his tendencies.

I remember talking to him that night (because we were still together) and telling him about my friend. I was just grieving and sad. His response to me was so jarring and self-centered that I think that was the cold water to wake me up and say, “I can’t wait any longer to end this!”

So that same night I told him, “We cannot be together. It’s not right, it’s not healthy. This is not a good relationship!” Well, I knew it was going to be bad to end things with him because of his jealous and controlling tendencies, but it was far worse than I imagined! 

He went on to describe ways he then wanted to kill himself to try and keep me on the phone, to keep me from getting out of his life. Well, the next day, of course my friend group is reeling from the news of my friend’s mom who has just passed. 

We decided after school we were going to her house. We bought a cake and brought five forks (because that’s what you do when you’re grieving, and you’re a woman!) and we were going to sit with her and eat cake and just be there with her.

And my ex, at that time, is calling me over and over and over again—hundreds of times—and I’m not answering, so I turned my phone off to be present with my friend in her house. I will never forget this moment of realizing how crazy this person is. We’re sitting on the floor, my friend’s mom’s violin is in the other room still full of glass shards, and we’re sitting there just listening to my friend. 

Her dad, the grieving widower, walks in and says, “Someone’s on the phone for Kelly?” My ex had found her number and called her house to get hold of me. And of course to spare my friend and the others from that drama, I stood out on the front porch talking with him for two to three hours, just to keep him from interrupting what was a really sacred moment.

There are many other moments I could tell you about the hardship that followed in those next four years. We had parents get involved, the school got involved, we almost got a restraining order. Eventually that ended, and I grieved and I processed with people in the healthiest way that I knew, but then we went to the same college.

Things just kept coming up, and what I remember feeling about my relationship with him—and especially how I was treated afterward—was I just felt taken advantage of, exploited in times of neediness, used. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that way. It’s a horrible feeling: to be taken advantage of, to feel like your weaknesses are being pitted against you to get something from you.

I’m generally like I just want to avoid conflict and go with the flow. But something happened, I think in just the harm of that situation, that was birthing a response in me, especially when I started to interact with him again in college. 

I had a moment . . . I don’t know why I was on the phone with him; he found some way to get hold of me. But, something in me just snapped! I’d never felt such anger in my whole life as in that moment. I’ve never talked to anybody the way that I talked to him. I let him have it!

I used the strongest language I could to explain how he had robbed me of precious moments with my friend, how he had taken away from me things that I could never get back. I just spewed out my wrath into the phone! I don’t know how long I talked, twenty minutes. After that his response was, “Well, did you ever consider how I felt through all of that?”

I hung up the phone and I threw it with all the energy I had at my bed in my dorm room (so it wouldn’t break)! I wept out of anger, just sheer anger! I’d never felt anything like it. I’ve never experienced anything like that since. I look back on that and feel like it is my phone call of wrath, the wrath of Kelly.

When we’re taken advantage of, when we are the ones who are being used, exploited, that’s our response . . . wrath! It’s anger! “This is not right that you would treat me this way!” What I think is so shocking about this chapter is, we’re going to see that God is not like us. He does not respond like us to some of the same circumstances.

Turn with me to Hosea chapter 11. We’re going to look at God’s response to being mistreated. The book of Hosea is written by the prophet Hosea, and it’s written to the northern kingdom of Israel.

Just to get a little context for them, some of the kings that came from that kingdom are kings like Jeroboam, who built golden calves to keep the people from going to the temple to worship God. There were people like Ahab and Jezebel who killed all the prophets. 

This is the northern kingdom of Israel who Hosea is writing to. This is God’s Word to those people. This is a people full of idolatry and too many sins to list! In Hosea chapter 11 we see God speaking to His people, and this is what He says:

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more they were called,
the more they went away;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals
and burning offerings to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk;
I took them up by their arms,
but they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with cords of kindness,
with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,
and I bent down to them and fed them.

They shall not return to the land of Egypt,
but Assyria shall be their king,
because they have refused to return to me.

The sword shall rage against their cities,
consume the bars of their gates,
and devour them because of their own counsels.

My people are bent on turning away from me,
and though they call out to the Most High,
he shall not raise them up at all. (vv. 1–7)

I want to stop there. Do you hear the language of God toward His people? It’s so tender! It’s motherly: “I taught them to walk. I carried them. I eased their yoke. I bent down and fed them.” That’s what we do as moms: we bend down, and we feed our kids.

And yet in all of that, the more that they were called, the more they went away. They sacrificed to idols. They refused to return to this God who loves them. They are bent on turning away from Him. Now I want to put a little bit of extra feel to what that means, that they are bent on turning away from Him, and just read you some other parts of the book of Hosea that have happened before this, things that God has said to His people already. In Hosea 1:2, He says: 

The land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.

The Lord is comparing Himself to a lover who has been cheated on. He says in Hosea 4:7: 

The more they increased [the more they prospered], the more they sinned against me. (Hosea 4:7)

They have forsaken the Lord
to cherish whoredom, wine, and new wine,
which take away the understanding.
My people inquire of a piece of wood,
and their walking staff gives them oracles.
For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray,
and they have left their God to play the whore. (Hosea 4:10–12)

They had the living God, and they’d rather seek a piece of wood for wisdom! 

Ephraim is like a dove,
silly and without sense,
calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
[They could call out to the Lord, but they’d rather call out to former slave masters! ]

Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!
I would redeem them,
but they speak lies against me.

They do not cry to me from the heart,
but they wail upon their beds;
for grain and wine they gash themselves;
they rebel against me.
[They don’t cry to Him for Him. They want things: “Give me grain and wine!”]

Although I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they devise evil against me. (Hosea 7:11, 13–15)

Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning,
they have become to him altars for sinning.
Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands,
they would be regarded as a strange thing. (Hosea 8:11–12) 

They don’t even recognize God or His Word anymore—wouldn’t recognize it if they saw it in front of them!

To me they cry,
“My God, we—Israel—know you.”

Israel has spurned the good;
the enemy shall pursue him.

They made kings, but not through me.
They set up princes, but I knew it not.
With their silver and gold they made idols
for their own destruction. (Hosea 8:2–4)

Do you hear them? “We know You, God. We’re good!” But they go and build idols! They make kings in their own way. This is what it means when God says, “They are bent on going away from Me; their default is to go astray.”

And what I don’t want to do is read this passage myself or have any of us go, “Those people are the worst! Good thing I’m not like them!” Because the truth is: this is our story. This is who we are. It’s in more graphic language than we would talk about our own sin and our own bentward-ness away from God. But this is us, too. We are the enemies of God! That’s who we were before Christ.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Rom. 5:10) 

Yes, we are saved by His life, but let us not forget we were first His enemies.

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4) 

Our hearts want to befriend the world. That’s in me, and that is to be an enemy of God. We are also His enemies. Our hearts are also prone to turning from Him. We sang: “Prone to wander Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” (“Come Thou Fount” by Robert Robinson) 

All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have [all] turned—every one—to his own way. (Isa. 53:6) 

We’ve all made idols and sacrificed to them.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (Col. 3:5) 

That envy that lurks in us when we see someone else wearing what we want . . . with the house that we want . . . with the kids that we want . . . with the husband that we want . . . with the followers that we want and the blog that we want and the opportunities that we want. That green jealousy in us, the Word tells us is idolatry. We have begun to prefer something else above the Living God. It is no different than the golden calves that Israel made in their day!

We forget that it was God who healed us. We take God for granted. We forget the things He did for us, the mountains He’s moved in our past. We’re forgetful . . . just like the people of Israel. And when I’m treated that way, like an enemy; when I’m forgotten about; when I’m mistreated and taken advantage of, what bubbled up out of my heart was wrath! I’m angry!

And what is so shocking, what we’re going to see in verse 8, is that God’s response to this is utterly different! Look with me at Hosea chapter 11, verse 8:

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my burning anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath. (vv. 8–9)

Hallelujah! This is what makes God different than us—holiness! Holy means “set apart” and “other.” He is other than us. He is separate from us. Part of that is that He, when He is mistreated by us, says, “I have burning anger, but I will not come in wrath!” 

This language in verses 8 and 9 isn’t even choice language, like, “Well, I could let them go, but I’m gonna choose to show compassion on them.” It is emotional! “How can I give you up!?”

Compassion is a very, “I’m moved to do something for somebody else.” It is inward; it starts inside. A lot of the Hebrew uses of the word “compassion.” When I asked my husband this, he said he had talked to a Hebrew scholar who said, “The best way I could put language to that Hebrew word for compassion is: warm womb.”

Warm womb. There’s a motherly emotive, longing, and moving toward somebody out of compassion. It’s that God looks at the people who have mistreated Him and has compassion on them! “My compassion grows warm and tender.” It’s shocking! Never in my life could I have that response toward someone who has treated me that way.

And God says, “I know. I’m not like you. I’m God. I’m not man. I’m not like you. I don’t come in my wrath.” Now, how can that be, right? How can God extend such kindness? Because there is burning anger; there is wrath for sin. We know that, right? 

Ephesians 2:3 calls us “children of wrath” before we have been saved, that the wrath of God abides on those of us who are in sin. How can God do this? There’s one reason: it’s Jesus! Jesus is the only reason that God can extend His compassion.

Surely he has borne our griefs
andcarried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. (Isa. 53:4–10)

That last verse, verse 10: “It was the will of the Lord to crush him . . .” I love the translation that comes from the NASB1995 that says, “The Lord was pleased to crush him.” If you look at the word usage in the Hebrew, that word across the board is “pleasure” and “delight” in other parts of our Bible. 

It was the “pleasure” and “delight” of God to crush His Son?! I have no concept of that! Again, we’re man; we’re not like Him. He was pleased to crush His Son because His compassion for us is love for us—it is not a choice.

There’s an internal compassion, kindness, love from God that is something that is so hard to fathom. I can’t imagine it! Jesus is the provision for this promise in verses 8 and 9, “For I am God and not man, I will not come in wrath.” He is the provision that makes it possible for God to say this to us.

But He is not just the provision for this promise; He is actually the manifestation of it! When He came to us, He didn’t come in wrath. Galatians 4:4–5 says, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

Scripture says in 1 Timothy 1:15: “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” Jesus came, not to first give the wrath of God, but to come and receive the wrath of God so that we didn’t have to.

He came to bear our wrath for us so that He could come in the compassion of God to welcome us into His fellowship and friendship. Though we have been His enemies and bent on turning away from Him, He had compassion on us. It is shocking!

He is so different than us, and that is so good! It is such a good thing! He is so “other,” and distinct and unique in this way. The book of Micah chapter 7:18–20 says it this way: 

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.

He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.

You will show faithfulness to Jacob
and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our fathers
from the days of old.

Who is a God like Him!? Though we are bent on turning away from Him . . . and even once He has saved us, our hearts pull us toward friendship with the world and idolatry and covetousness, He says He will pardon our iniquity, and He will not come in wrath toward us, and He welcomes us.

If this were me being treated this way, I know how I would act, because that happened to me and wrath is what came out. Paul understands this when he writes in Romans 5:7: “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die . . .” What’s implicit there is “a bad person,” someone who has mistreated you. We wouldn’t even think about dying for that person! We might consider it—maybe!—for someone really good. 

. . . but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Rom. 5:8–9)

We’ve been delivered from His wrath, not because we deserved it, but because of His great, shocking compassion for His enemies, that He would go on our behalf to bear that for us!

What is this supposed to do for us? What should this do in our hearts when we read this? I know for me, my first response is just praise! “God, how could You do this for me?” Just thank and praise Him for who He is. 

It is so good to remember who we are, who we’re not, and to remember that He’s not like us, to remember who He is and how He is different than us and to praise Him for that and to thank Him that He’s not like us! Say, “Thank You, Lord, that You’re not like me. You are other and holy and perfect and pure in Your compassion.” Meditate on that truth and think on it and just spend time on it.

So much of my Bible study for so long was, “Tell me how to be better. ‘Me’ . . . tell me how to be a better ‘me.’” But these passages have helped me say, “I just want to forget about me for a minute and say, “Who is God!? How amazing is He! How different is He from me!” I want to spend time on that. I think these passages call us to that, to think on His otherness, and how amazingly good it is for us and how glorious it makes Him. 

But secondly, I think this is what helps motivate us to show compassion to others. I don’t who you struggle to be nice to, to be kind to, to feel like a tender feeling toward. For a lot of us moms, that could be our kids on any given day because we feel this a little bit in parenthood.

“I bend down and feed you every day, and you don’t give me a ‘thank you’?!” Have you ever felt that? We don’t say it all the time, but it sure rises up! I remember my daughter one day it felt like from the moment she picked her sweet little head up from her bed until we made it in the car to run some errands (probably only 11:00 a.m.), it was constant complaints! “I need . . . I need this . . . Why haven’t you done this? Why isn’t this working?” And I was actually really working hard to be patient. I remember praying, “Lord, give me patience!”

I was doing really good for a while. Then I had this moment right before we left where I just kind of blew up a little bit and raised my voice: “Guys! I just need a second!” I don’t remember what I said, but again I was working really hard, like, “Lord, help me grow in this area.”

So we got in the car and I buckled everybody up. I had a moment to just breathe while everybody was strapped in. I was going to turn around and apologize to my daughter. Before I could get the words out, this comes from behind: “Mommy, are you going to apologize to me now?” (laughter) Sweet girl! (sarcastically)

And you know what came out of me at that moment? Wrath! I felt anger! “No! I’m not going to apologize to you!” That’s what was bubbling out of my heart. I don’t have it! But the Lord does, and meditating on His compassion for me—soaking it in, thinking on it, meditating on it—then I can remember in that moment, “Lord, I’m just like my daughter! ‘Lord, are You going to apologize to me for not giving me what I wanted when I wanted it?!’” That’s in my heart! But the Lord is patient and kind with me and He pours out compassion on me. 

As I think on that, that becomes so beautiful to me, that then in that moment I have strength to say, “Lord, make me like You. I want to be more like You than like man, like humanity. I can’t do it. Would You help me?”

For some of us who have been deeply hurt by others, there is real anger and wrath for sin. It is right to be angry at sin. I think that some of my anger toward that guy in high school was righteous. I had been sinned against, and there is right anger for sin. But wrath is not mine to distribute. 

The sins of that man against me were primarily against God, and it is from God that wrath will be given for that sin—either on the cross or on him. It is not my place to distribute wrath. I had a friend after that episode happened and I processed with her who lovingly told me, “Your healing, Kelly, will not come from him owning those things, and it won’t come from you punishing him for his wrongs. You have to leave that in the hands of God, and then you have to look to God for restoration.” 

I had to walk away. I wanted punishment to be doled out, but we can trust that God will do that. We can also thank Him that He doesn’t want to do that, that He has sent Christ to bear it for us if we will be so humble to receive it. I don’t know what need you have for the compassion of God and what it needs to move in you, but it’s when we look to His compassion and His great mercy and His great empathy for people who are not deserving of it that will actually motivate an overflow of that to those in our own lives. Let’s pray together.

Thank You so much, God, for Your shocking compassion for people who are bent on turning away from You. Though we deserve your wrath and we deserve punishment, God, You are not like us. Thank You, God, You are not like man! You are holy and other and You do not come in wrath!

Thank You so much, God, for sending Christ on our behalf to bear the weight and burden and punishment of our sin and instead welcome us with clothes of righteousness, to be brought in with compassion and tenderness and lovingkindness. 

Lord, we praise Your Name. We thank You for who You are. We ask You that You would move in our hearts as we worship You for that, to be able to walk in your ways, modeling your compassion for others in our lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Nancy: “The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever” (Lam. 3:22–23). I have a date next to Hosea 11, verse 9 in my Bible. I won’t tell you what date it is, but it was a number of years ago, and when I look at that date I can remember a set of circumstances with some people who had hurt me deeply, and anger was welling up in my heart.

I felt I had been misunderstood, things had been said that had been hurtful, painful. My heart was kind of reeling from that. I came to this passage, and God’s Word wrecked me—as God’s Word is intended to do. I read this verse in Hosea chapter 11, at the end of verse 8 and the beginning of verse 9:

My compassion grows warm and tender; I will not execute my burning anger.

I wrote next to that date in my Bible, “Give me Your heart toward those who have wronged and hurt me.” So, take just a moment in your heart to, first, just thank the Lord for His steadfast love that endures forever, for his amazing compassion toward you, that He has not executed His burning anger towards you. Instead, He put it all on Jesus! Take a moment to say, “Thank You, Lord, that I’m a recipient of Your compassion, that Jesus took the burning anger I deserved.”

Then as you think about that person or those people who have sinned against you and perhaps deserve burning wrath for their wrongdoing, would you say, “Lord, thank You that You bore the consequences of their sin, as well.”

Say, “Lord, I don’t want to execute my burning anger; it’s not mine to distribute,” as Kelly has reminded us. “Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord, “I will repay” (Rom. 12:19). “Don’t return evil for evil” (1 Peter 3:9). Rather, return good for evil, overcome evil with good (see Rom. 12:21). 

That’s what God did for us, He overcame our evil by pouring out the righteousness of Christ upon us. How amazing is that! 

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth helping all of us respond to a message brought by Kelly Needham. God’s compassion truly is shocking, when we think about it, when we think about what we deserve and what He gives us instead!

Compassion is our theme this month at Revive Our Hearts. To go with that theme, we want to let you know about a booklet by Erin Davis called Uncommon Compassion. The subtitle is exactly what Kelly Needham was talking about today, it’s: Revealing the Heart of God.

You see, the more we understand God’s compassion to us, the more we can show compassion to others. So, ask for a copy of Uncommon Compassion when you make a donation of any amount this month. To do that, just head over to ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Tomorrow we’ll hear from Erika VanHaitsma. She’ll help us consider what she calls “The Humiliation of Compassion.”I hope you’ll join us to hear more tomorrow for Revive Our Hearts. 

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.