Jeffrey Michael Davis
The Compassionate Life

If Jeff Davis was anything, he was a man after the Lord’s heart. He received Christ at an early age and truly loved the Lord as a child. This however was not the case during his adolescent years, but despite running from God and from the calling God had placed on his life, Jeff’s latter days serving the Lord and reaching a lost and hurting world was birthed during a season where God became all he had and it was during this season Jeff realized God was all he needed.

He was gifted at anything he set his mind to and everything in life came very easy to Jeff: sports, academics, and business; so easy in fact that over time he began to believe all his accomplishments and successes were a result of his own doing. Pride came before his fall, but when he lost his job, his home, his money and many of his friends, God was there with His arms opened wide to catch him.

God had called Jeff into ministry at a very early age and although he was raised in the fear and admiration of the Lord, he chose not to answer that call and it took a prodigal son experience to bring him back into the design God had planned for him from the beginning. Upon losing his job, he began seeking God again, he began making God a part of his life, and he even began stepping out in faith teaching Bible study at his local church. Some would say, “Only if he had just served the Lord from the beginning,” but to this Jeff would never agree because it was in losing everything that he found everything.

During this season of transformation, seeds which were planted years before in his life began to spring forth with new life as God began doing a redemptive work is his life. The more Jeff opened himself up to others, the more God poured Himself into Him. It was at this crossroads in life that he truly answered the call which God had placed on his life many years earlier on his first mission trip to Kenya, but it was also during this metamorphosis that the enemy was trying every trick he had to make Jeff feel worthless, damaged, and that he was too broken for God to use him. The devil knew the potential that rested within this man of God especially if he used all his talents, his brokenness turned to restoration and his compassion to help seek and save that which was lost.

During a retreat called the “Walk to Emmaus,” Jeff had a life changing experience. Something happened during this encounter that would shape his entire ministry. He could no longer deny God’s calling nor His presence and the Holy Spirit anointed Jeff to do the work God was calling him to do. The Holy Spirit came upon him and this was one of those experiences you come out of with a new name after being blessed!

Because of how successful Jeff was in everything he put his mind to, it took this spiritual awakening for him to start seeing people through the eyes of Jesus. It took this supernatural encounter for Jeff to feel the pain and suffering of God’s children and it took this season of restoration for his core mission in life to be one full of love, acceptance and forgiveness for everyone. Those three words: love, acceptance, and forgiveness were the foundation of his ministry and countless lives were impacted through his compassion for the lost and hurting.
Many great saints that came before him impacted his walk with the Lord all of which had an encounter with the Holy Spirit which changed them forever. By living a cleansed life, Samuel Logan Brengle, famous for his service in the Salvation Army was spiritually effective by keeping himself cleansed; it allowed the Holy Spirit and divine life to flow through him. After Jeff purged his life of all the things he thought were bringing him happiness and pleasure, but were actually pulling him away from God, he found a way to be continually full of life with Christ as his source. Jeff was also a huge follower of Oswald Chambers and they had much in common from their gifting in art as well as their successfulness in life, but their greatest similarity came in understanding there was no desire the Lord creates in any of us that He Himself cannot satisfy. Jeff would always say, “Finding the secret in life is not a mystery, it is a decision to allow the Holy Spirit into your life until you are overflowing with love, mercy and grace.” His headstone today reads, “Not perfect, but forgiven and used by God to show compassion to a lost and hurting world.”