Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our Reading titled Compassion in Action was written by Patricia Rabin.

Building benches isn't James Warren's job. He started building them, however, when he noticed

a woman in Denver sitting in the dirt while waiting for a bus. That's undignified, Warren

worried, so the 28-year-old workforce consultant found some scrapwood, built a bench, and placed

it at the bus stop. It quickly got used. Realizing many of the 9,000 bus stops

in his city lacked seating, he made another bench, then several more inscribing, be kind on each one.

His goal? To make people's lives just a little bit better in any way I can, Warren said.

Compassion is another way of describing such action. As practiced by Jesus, compassion is a feeling

so strong that it leads us to take action to meet another's need. When crowds of desperate people pursued Jesus,

Mark 6.34 says,

He had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

He turned that compassion into action by healing their sick.

We too should clothe ourselves with compassion, Paul urged in Colossians 312. The benefits,

as Warren says, it fills me up, it's air in my tires. All around us are needs, and God will

bring them to our attention.

Those needs can motivate us to put our compassion into action,

and those actions will encourage others as we show them the love of Christ.

Today's Our Daily Read devotional Scripture reading is from Colossians chapter 3, verses 12 through 14.

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved,

clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,

gentleness, and patience.

Bear with each other and forgive one another

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