November 1

A Tender Heart

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.  ––Ezekiel 36:26-27

Tender : adjective

showing care : considerate, solicitous  

tender regard

It’s easy to see the word “tender” and equate it with “soft” or “weak.” Think of a great steak: the best cuts are always tender. No one likes a tough, hard-to-chew steak. What’s hard—especially in our modern culture—is that the signals men receive are mixed:

Be strong, but sensitive.

Be tough, but caring.

Be assertive, but not arrogant.

Be direct, but not mean.

It can be confusing … I mean, so which is it?

Jesus models the exact path we should walk as men of God who are both tenderhearted and tough. Have you ever noticed that a lot of the Classical and Renaissance painters depicted Jesus as, well, kind of wimpy. Skinny, with sad eyes and soft features. I mean, come on! The guy was a carpenter who walked everywhere He went, and carried the cross most of the way along the Via de la Rosa on His way to Golgotha.

During the first century, a Roman cross was estimated to weigh between 300-400 pounds, and a condemned man was forced to carry the horizontal patibulum, or crossbeam, which weighed anywhere between 70–125 pounds. We know Jesus got some help from Simon the Cyrene, but still: He’d been scourged by a Roman flagellum, a whip made of leather strips with embedded pieces of bone and lead. This punishment alone was known to kill many men! So, yeah, Jesus was tough in the truest sense of the word.

And yet, he was also tender-hearted. We see His tender heart over and over in the New Testament. He adored children, and gave them preferential treatment. He loved the brokenhearted and downtrodden, and had mercy on them:

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  ––Matthew 9:36

Now a leper came to him, imploring him and kneeling on his knees before him, saying, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed!”  ––Mark 1:40-41

It’s tough to be tender-hearted. When life gets hard and the pressure builds, the last thing I want to do is “show care” or be “considerate or solicitous.” The more stressed we are, the less margin we have for thoughtfulness and empathy. That’s why it’s so important to prioritize Christ each morning, and ask Him for His heart for the world and for the people who will cross your path that day. To be a gentleman is to be both gentle (tender) and manly (strong and tough). Toughness is not meanness—it simply means we can move in His strength and confidence, rather than our own.

Lord, help me copy Christ to become a tender-hearted man who is both strong and merciful.