Matthew 8:1 When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

The three preceding chapters are the Sermon on the Mount. There is so much in those three chapters that it is almost impossible to cover everything in one devotional. Hidden within all those words is one rather important issue that can be easily overlooked given the enormity of that sermon.

He declared who will be saved without telling them how. I do not know if the importance of that was lost on the multitudes that day. Maybe they did get it, because when He came down of the mount they followed him. Then what?

He healed a leper. Knowing something of the attitudes of the day, it is safe to assume this leper was not one who came down off the mount with the multitudes. He had not heard all that had been said of the blessings, the law, attitudes and worship. He just wanted to be healed. This Jesus did because He had compassion and because He could.

There is our lesson for today. When we come down off the mount, do we have compassion and do what we can? The exhilaration of coming down from that lofty place of being in the presence of our Lord can be overwhelming. It can often cause us to forget our calling and the reason we get to ascend that Holy Hill.

Compassion and doing the work of the ministry once we have come back down, is the point of the Sermon on the Mount. What is the point of any sermon by anyone if these two things are left undone? You do realize that following Jesus is more than plodding along behind, right?