Please read one of two Mark McCormack stories about golf great Arnold Palmer's compassion. In a tournament playoff round Palmer stood just off the green. He heard a little boy chatter to his mother. He turned and scowled, then, seeing the lad, laughed. The tension of playoff golf vanished with the laughter.
As Palmer re-took his stance, the boy started to cry. Palmer again looked and laughed. But when he heard a muffled sound, he looked and saw the boy turning blue by having his mother's hand over his mouth. He put his club down, went to the lad and took him in his arms. Turning to the mother, urged her not to hurt the child. It was only a golf tournament, after all, and not that important. Arnie, p. 91. Palmer then handily won the playoff. A man covered with leprosy approached Jesus, fell before him and begged in faith for healing. Jesus "reached out his hand and TOUCHED the man"—TOUCHED—though touching a dreaded, unclean disease. The man's new flesh instantly appeared all over and through his body Luke 5:12-13. Another time "a man with a shriveled hand was there". Jesus ordered him to "stretch" it out—a shriveled hand that he kept close to his side. But by power in the WORD of the MAN with POWER, the man DID stretch it into a "completely restored" limb Matthew 12:13. Still another, "Many followed him, and he healed all their sick" Matthew 12:15. Jesus, God's chosen servant, the Master of Compassion compassionately caring, delighting his Father, giving all the nations hope Matthew 12:21, including ours, including now. Had Jesus been but a compassionate healer he would still be universally applauded everywhere, in every age. And how much physically-healthier would all be. However...still left in our sins, still offering animal sacrifices in a vain effort to find forgiveness, still seeking the personal peace we'd never find, the personal cleansing from sin we'd never have. By age twelve Jesus knew why he came, fixed his mind on it, never deviated from it and went to the Cross, from the Cross to a 3-day tomb; from the tomb to Glorious Resurrection, from a Resurrected Body to an ever-more Glorious eternal Exaltation as the Living God as Glorified Human Body. So that, in our new eternal bodies we could SEE the Invisible Father in His Visible Son.
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