"Whoever...has tasted of the love of Christ, and has known, by his own experience, the need and the worth of redemption, is enabled, yea, he is constrained, to love his fellow creatures. He loves them at first sight, and, if the providence of God commits a dispensation of the gospel and care of souls to him, he will feel the warmest emotions of friendship and tenderness, while he beseeches them by the tender mercies of God, and even while he warns them by his terrors" - John Newton

I heard John Piper quote John Newton in a sermon of his doing a biography of John Newton. One thing I didn't know about Newton was that he was a slave himself, which must have been the means by which his heart changed towards the slavery of Africans by God's providence. And John Piper says about him, "He loved [the lost] at first sight." I wish my heart would beat that way again. I once had compassion for lost souls that would bring me to great tears. I would pray constantly in classes for my fellow classmates to come to Christ. Then, "compassion-fatigue& quot; set in. Satan, through a series of events tried to take me out at the knee and stop me from doing evangelism, as it would seem. I got several death threats where I worked. I became enbittered and would say things like, "I wish God would send us all to hell so that we would get what we deserved." I was hit by Romans 3 which declares There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that does good. It destroyed any humanism I may have had (fortunately), but ruined my God-given heart for lost souls. I want to bear again what the Lord Jesus bore in His heart for the others around Him, which He felt all His life, because even from age 12 He was "All about [His] Father's business."

I want to see others the way Jesus Christ sees them, by the bible. I want my first response when looking upon someone not to be criticism or disgust or assessment, but the genuine tenderheartedness that Jesus had in His heart.