Fruit of the Spirit: Kindness

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

The Webster 1828 Dictionary defines kindness as a desire to make others happy by granting their request, supplying their wants or assisting them in distress. Proceeding from tenderness or goodness of heart; benevolent. Let me start by saying one of the ways we believers experience God’s kindness is through answered prayers. If kindness is defined as making others happy or joyful by granting their request, then, when God answers our prayers he’s literally showing us himself through the act of his kindness. The Bible paints a powerful picture of God’s nature and how mighty he shows himself through his attributes. His kindness is deep, enduring, and transformative. From the beginning to the end of scripture, God acts of compassion, mercy, grace towards humanity reveals a truth that longs for deeper relationship, restoration, and redemption. One of the most influential and comforting truths in scripture is that God’s kindness is everlasting. It is never based on our worthiness or works, but on his unchanging character. The scripture says, “I have love you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3). There’s a sincere actuality that God does not grow tired of loving and pursuing his children. Even when we fail him, he still shows compassion and kindness out of love. What is even more amazing is that it is because of the kindness of God that draws us back to him when we sin. It literally causes us to turn from sin and towards him.

God’s kindness is most fully revealed in Jesus Christ. In Titus 3:4-5, it explains that when the kindness and love of our savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. Jesus came not because we were good, but because God is kind. The cross, often seen only as a symbol of suffering, is also a display of infinite kindness. In giving His Son for a broken world, God extended the greatest kindness imaginable—grace for the undeserving. Christ our everlasting King became Lord to ALL! What a true act of kindness from our God.

“The Lord is Good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.” (Psalm 145:9).

 In the Book, Holier Than Thou, the author closes her exhortation with a pure and stark appeal that reads, “Looking to Christ, we too are set apart from the world and the things it delights in. To God we belong, giving Him our bodies as a living sacrifice, our mouths as His ambassadors, our feet to bring His good news. Believing God to be the all-satisfying bread of life He is, He fills us and frees us from being enslaved to everything and everybody. Being satisfied in God makes us totally “independent of our environment” since we are no longer needy of people or circumstances to make us happy or whole. As “people who are free” we are liberated to love as generously as God does, not repaying evil for evil but turning our cheek, while pursuing moral purity with all that we have. Clothed in the newness of Christ, we “put to death therefore what is earthly. . . sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col. 3:5) And put on, as God’s chosen ones, “holy and beloved compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing one another . . .” (Col. 3:12-13). This heaven-empowered love toward God and our neighbors may set us at odds with the world around us, but even then, as God’s peace is, ours is too—settled and safe. it is the world that Christ has overcome, and through Christ, we will overcome too. Of the saints, He says, “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Rev. 3:12). And there, finally, after we have breathed our last, we will see why dying is gain. Opening those eyes that were once blind, now seeing, He will finally appear, and do you know what will happen next? “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

 What a true act of kindness this is. To God be the Glory. Amen.