Kindness

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness..”

Jesus was the most compassionate and kind person to walk the face of the earth. He said to His disciples that if they were to even give a drink to a child in need, it would be as if they were doing it unto Him. Jesus was a man full of kindness. Jesus was a giver. If we are to imitate Jesus, we are going to walk in kindness toward one another. Many times we can see kindness in words, such as “Oh, he just told me how nice I looked” – from that, we consider them to be a kind person…But kindness should be expressed little in words compared to our acts of kindness. This does not mean that we are not kind with our words, but that our actions back up our words, not to mention that acts of kindness far outweigh in value words of kindness. Ephesians 4:32 says “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you”.
In 1 Corinthians 13, commonly referred to as the Love chapter, kindness is mentioned as being a part of love. It says “Love is patient, love is kind…” So, in order to be walking in the fullness of Love, which is actually the first fruit of the Spirit that we went over (but just began to touch), we must be walking in kindness. And this is food for thought coming up right here – Saying something kind to somebody’s face and turning around and talking badly about the same person is wrong and the very word’s said to the person’s face did not come from a kind heart, therefore kindness is not at work. Kindness is more than words. True kindness must blossom from the inside, the heart must be right. If my heart is filled with hate and I talk kindly to someone but truly hate that person and they don’t know it, it is NOT kindness. This is not believed today. The practice today is to be nice to somebody when they’re present, but when they’re not, they are center of hurtful words, we chop them up and leave them on the ground even though they aren’t there. Then we want to see them and smile and say “Oh you look so nice today, you are truly an angel”, the only problem is…The heart’s not there. And truly, the other person may not know it, but the one who has the wrong heart does and must take into account their attitude of heart and change it. Kindness is practiced whether there are people around or not.
I hope you see how important kindness is and how strongly linked it is to love. The two walk hand in hand! Let’s make an effort to walk in kindness and love towards one another, when people are not present and when they are. When kindness springs forth from the heart, it will be so easy to talk kindly to one another and the joy of it is this – it will be truth!