Kindness – One of the fruits of the spirit found in Galatians 5:22. Kind – of a good or
benevolent nature or disposition. In other words, at your core it is who you are…. Kindness is one of those things you can’t whup up at anytime and just do it. You have to be it!!! Some people are kind. That’s just the way it is!! When Christ invades your heart, He changes you and you do have the ability at your source to be kind. Why do so many people fight being kind? Because kindness many times will get you “walked on.” You know, abused because you are so giving when you are kind. When a person isn’t kind you can almost see into their heart and the facial difference is amazing. I can honestly meet a person for the first time and tell if they are kind or not, just by their disposition. Not judging, just looking. An unkind person carries a certain aura around with them and makes everyone around them just a “little bit uncomfortable.” Unkind people prey on kind people and victimize them because they know they can. Unkind people are some of the most hatefull, depressed people you will ever encounter and they many times know they are that way, but are too prideful to change. But what about the changes of an encounter with the grace of Jesus through salvation? Shoudn’t that make a difference? Yes it should, but a person who has become comfortable with unkindness actually thrives off the damage it does to those around them and they enjoy the “rush.” They would never admit that, but it’s true. And what is the fallout of unkind people? They are actually crew members on the ship going to hell, as they misrepresent their Lord (if He really is their Lord) and cause many lost people to question the difference Christ is supposed to make in a person’s life. They maybe aren’t going to hell, but you can smell their singed clothing because they live so much like they are from hell. These people have become Raiders of the Lost Kindness. They have pilfered their Christian Faith and given way to living a double identity. They are posers!!! People who put on a good act of being a Christian, but do not bear the fruit that goes with that relationship. They take what Jesus gives to all who know Him, the fruit of kindness and steal that gift and replace it with a heart that wants to hurt anyone who gets in their way. Their way is not the narrow way of righteousness that is evidence in a disciple. They have raided the fruit of kindness and drug it through the sin of hatefulness and mean spiritedness.
In the first Indiana Jones movie Harrison Ford’s character started out the movie by raiding a cave of an artifact that was very valuable and almost lost his life raiding it. His next move though was his biggest as he searched for the Ark of the Covenant. He honored the Ark enough to want to keep it in the right hands, that would cherish it and protect it. The bad guys wanted it’s power for their own use. In the end they got the power, but it fried them when they opened it up. End of story. Raiders of the Lord Kindness are the bad guys who want to use the power of them saying they know Christ to be able to do unkind things and get away with it again and again. Their end will be the same as the bad guys in the movie as they have opened up something that will consume them because they are not honoring God by living a life of truth and love. Those who try to live a life of kindness and try to protect what it represents guard their hearts against using their faith for evil power and in doing so keep the integrity of that fruit in place. For those who have kind hearts, don’t despair!! God will bless you for protecting one of the most important fruits, called kindness, and your continued love for Christ will keep the kindness fruit preserved and pure. Don’t give it to the unkind people of the world, but give them Jesus and His power will defeat their wrong way of living. The following scriptures classify the king and unkind person.
Matthew 5:11 Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.
Matthew 5:39 – But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
Matthew 12:35 – A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the vil treasure brings forth evil things.
Matthew 15:19 – For out of the heart proceed evil thought, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
No matter how much they raid kindness, protect it in your heart and let Jesus shine through and they will be defeated!! Kindness can never be overrated!!
British statesman and financier Cecil Rhodes, whose fortune was used to endow the world-famous Rhodes Scholarships, was a stickler for correct dress–but apparently not at the expense of someone else’s feelings. A young man invited to dine with Rhodes arrived by train and had to go directly to Rhodes’s home in his travel-stained clothes. Once there he was appalled to find the other guests already assembled, wearing full evening dress. After what seemed a long time Rhodes appeared, in a shabby old blue suit. Later the young man learned that his host had been dressed in evening clothes, but put on the old suit when he heard of his young guest’s dilemma.
Do you show a witness of being kind? What’s the hold up?
The Pilgrimage continues….
David Warren