IF you're waiting to get your life in order so that you feel good enough to present yourself to God, you'll be waiting a long, long time. Instead, receive Jesus Christ as your Savior right now, just as you are, and let Him declare you to be a holy and beloved child of God. Then go back to working out your God-given identity as you present yourself to Him day by day. As we learned last week, we need to think of it as 'dressing ourselves' in preparation for serving Him and His goals through the day. While holiness and the love of God are gifts of His grace, the character and temperament of Jesus are worked out through obedient, repentance, and the disciplines of the Christian life which allows the Spirit to flow into our hearts.
Sympathy is the cheap cousin of compassion.
We can feel sympathy to the point of shedding tears and then wipe away the tears, walk away, and forget the need of that person. Don't confuse sympathy with compassion. Compassion compels service and action. The best men, I thought, stood aloof and kept their emotions in check. My father, who is a Pastor, is a man of tremendous compassion.