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I am often asked questions. This question came to me today anonymously:

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." What does Jesus mean when He says this? The reason I ask is because unsaved people often take advantage of my Christian kindness to them and often wrong me; does this verse mean I should not waste my time befriending unsaved people or that it is a sin to do so?

Here is what I wrote in reply:

Human compassion is masked pride. Put bluntly, one does not need to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God to be compassionate, so there is nothing intrinsically Christian about it. We can be sinfully compassionate, and we can be righteously compassionate once we have the Spirit of God within us. I hope to show you how you can start moving closer and closer to walking according to the Spirit and thereby enter a new kind of life that abounds in righteousness and is never frustrated when moved to compassion. It is so simple, I can be explained in a minute, but it takes a lifetime of discipline to make it an every-day occurrence. So, lets get right to it.

Romans 14:23
... everything that does not come from faith is sin.

Those with faith, can avoid sin ... and those without faith are doomed to a life of constant sin no matter how "good" or "compassionate" it appears to us. The reason they are constantly sinning, is because there is no faith to hear what the Lord says to them and then obey the call. Instead of listening for the call, a faithless approach is to look around with your eyes and try to perceive what others "need." So trained in this carnal activity are new Christians, that we are in the habit of abandoning the voice of the Shepherd to go our own way ... to do "whatever seems right in our own eyes." (Isa. 5:21, Proverbs 14:12)

Romans 8:4-5 (New American Standard Bible)
4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

As Christians, we have within us the same Eternal life that is in Jesus.(John 20:31, 1 John 5:12) We are His sheep, and we hear His voice. (John 10:16.) We have the Holy Spirit as a coach that comes inside of us and guides us about what we should do (John 16:7.) And by the spiritual faculties of new-birth we can listen and obey any specific call of the Spirit. This is "walking according to the Spirit," as Paul puts it ... or as it says in the Gospels "led by the Spirit."

God may call you to give all your worldly possessions to a person that is already dripping with gold, or that God may tell you to withhold all money when asked by an impoverished beggar. The KEY is to train yourself to listen and obey, without any predetermination upon the externally apparent "need." This means abandoning your perceptions and embracing only a walk of radical faith (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11.)

Galatians 2:20
"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

No matter how far you stray, the walk of faith is only a moment away, and can be entered at the speed of your thought, though you may not frequently do this at first. The idea of growth is not moving from faith to something other than faith, but by staying with faith ... and just increasing how often you walk according to the faith. We never improve our activity on our own, we are just depending more often, relying on God more frequently, and abiding more consistently.

I can see why the Lord has frustrated your human compassion. It is sin, worthy of deep repentance, and God would not permit it to be satisfying when He has something far better to give you ... a life of simple devotion to Him (2 Corinthians 11:1). You can become a living sacrifice ... and start heeding the call of the Lord Jesus, rather than impulsively heeding the perceived need.

Romans 12:1 "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship."