Today is the final post from the lovely Stella Doggett/ I hope you have enjoyed her guest posts.
I love kindness!! It sounds so soft and gentle, and yet it is one of the most powerful attributes that our God has. We have considered God’s kindness on previous days, and looked at how Jesus expressed kindness at the time of His Passion, but let’s look again at this beautiful fruit. It is so close to love that often they are blended. The psalmists, for example, sing and write about ‘loving kindness’ over and over again, even declaring that the Lord’s loving kindness is ‘better than life’, Psalm 63:3, AV. And in 1 Corinthians 13:4 we read ‘love is patient and kind’, and that is our God.
Paul notes the powerful part that God’s kindness plays in leading us to repentance, and into relationship with Him, (Romans 2:4), and we see how that works as we look at how Jesus touched the lives of those who were expecting anything but kindness from Him. People like the Samaritan woman at the well, who had had a few too many husbands, (John 4:7-26), the woman caught in adultery (John 8: 3-11), and Zaccheus, the social pariah. (Luke 19:1-10)
Then there are all the unexpected acts of kindness that we see happening as Jesus meets and mixes with people in all kinds of different circumstances. There’s the widow whose only son had just died, who sees Him resurrected before her eyes, (Luke 7:11-15); the making of enough food to feed a vast crowd at the end of a long day, (Luke 9:12-17); the making sure His mum was going to be cared for as He died, (John 19:26,27); and choosing to appear first to a weeping Mary, in the garden after His resurrection, (John 20:10-17).
As I read through the gospels it’s hard to choose only these illustrations because there is just so much kindness coming from Jesus on every single day of His three years of ministry. Kindness just flowed from Him almost like He couldn’t stop it. Oh but wait! Of course! God’s heart is just full of kindness so He couldn’t stop it, could He? It’s who God is. Jesus said He had come to show us what the Father is like, to reveal the Father to us, saying to Philip, ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.’ John 14:9.
Jesus is our visual aid, into the kind heart of Father God; the God who, when asked to show His glory, revealed His goodness and loving kindness. (Exodus 33:18,19 AMP). When Jesus turned water into 160 gallons of wine to save a family’s reputation at a wedding, that kindness we are told, revealed His glory. (John 2:4-11). And so we see that the glory of God is manifested in His kindness. No surprise then that one aspect of the fruit of the Spirit is ‘kindness’. Father Son and Holy Spirit are kind, and if the Spirit is flowing through us, kindness will be in evidence. Kind words and kind deeds.
As we thank the Lord for the kindness He has shown to us, and thank Him for all the kindness that we read of in the bible, we can expect kindness to flow from our inmost being too. Then we can also thank the Lord for every opportunity He gives us to let that same kindness flow from us. Thanksgiving ‘primes the pump’ and lets our kindness flow to the ‘undeserving’, the difficult ones, the stranger and the outcasts, as well as to our friends and family and those we love.
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Activation…..
The fruit of the Spirit that is kindness will make you like your heavenly Father. Kindness can even disarm and win the hardest of hearts, so thank Him for the opportunities He gives you today to show kindness. Thanksgiving will help you over the threshold of, “not now, it’s not convenient”, or “that’s just a little thing, they won’t notice anyway,” and other objections that we may raise to those instant acts of kindness.
Thanksgiving for the opportunities to be kind will help you to let ‘kindness’ flow, and it will help you not to underestimate the power of even the smallest act of kindness in a person’s life.
Record those opportunities below, and you might be surprised at just how many He gives you. This will then heighten your awareness of just how much kindness is in the heart of our Heavenly Father, and how much of His kindness you can bring into the world every day, bringing glory to God.
Journey into Hope 