Though we talk to little children about it a lot, kindness does not often find its way into the teaching material for mature Christians. It should though. Kindness is one of the “Fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23). In other words, it is one of the qualities that should show up when God’s spirit is interacting with the life of his people. Kindness is important for many reasons, but it is absolutely necessary for these three reasons.
First,
kindness breaks my selfish tendencies.
Left to my own devices, I will always think about myself
first and do
what I want to do. Asking
the question,
“What is the kind response?” changes my viewpoint. It forces me to see the
situation from the
perspective of “What can I give and contribute?” rather than,
“What do I want
or need?” Colossians 3:12
tells us to
“Clothe yourselves with… kindness”.
It
is to be the quality that covers us and the thing that people see
when they
look at us. Kindness make
me think about
you instead of me.
Secondly,
kindness changes how I see others.
Again,
thinking only from my perspective allows me to be critical and
judgmental. When I reframe
my thinking
about others with kindness, then I start to notice the things that
I like and
not just what I dislike. Kindness
makes
me look for ways to encourage and help. Proverbs
12:25 says, “An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word
cheers him
up”. When I look for ways
to help,
kindness finds a way through and makes a difference.
Lastly,
kindness makes me look like a child of God.
You have probably had the experience of seeing someone and
saying, “You
look just like your mom!” Ephesians
4:32
says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each
other, just as
in Christ God forgave you”. When
we act
out of kindness, God’s own nature shines through us.
As
I
said at the start, we spend a lot of time telling little children
how important
it is to be kind to everyone. That
lesson is no less important or powerful as we grow up.
In
a
world where you can be anything, be kind!
Comments