Chapter Three
LOVE IS KIND
Kind …
2 archaic: manner
3: fundamental nature or quality: essence
The Lord told Moses to tell the Israelites how He would bless them…
Numbers 6:24-27 (Amplified)
The Lord bless you and watch, guard, and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon and enlighten you and be gracious (kind, merciful, and giving favor) to you; the Lord lift up His (approving) countenance upon you and give you peace (tranquility of heart and life continually). And they shall put My name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them.
God wants us to know how He feels about us. How He cares for us. What He has planned for us. This is not a secret. This is not for our time in heaven. It is for now!
Isaiah 54:8 & 10 (Amplified)
In a little burst of wrath I hid My face from you for a moment, but with age-enduring love and kindness I will have compassion and mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer. For though the mountains should depart and the hills be shaken or removed, yet My love and kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace and completeness be removed, says the Lord, Who has compassion on you.
Isaiah 55:3 (Amplified)
Incline your ear (submit and consent to the divine will) and come to Me; hear, and your soul will revive; and I will make an everlasting covenant or league with you, even sure mercy (kindness, goodwill, and compassion) promised to David.
Do you see the kindness of God? He tells us to come to Him. He tells us that He knows how bad we have been but that His love is not affected by it. That if we come to Him, He will save us. Even those who have chosen Jesus, we make mistakes, we step back. But He shows us kindness. We repent and we are again made clean. Now that doesn’t mean we just go on and sin and repent, sin and repent. We need to make conscious efforts to not sin, but only Jesus is perfect, so God knows that the temptation of sin is there but as long as we are trying to do the right things and realize when we miss it, we ask His forgiveness and He does forgive.
In 2 Corinthians 8:9 it tells us how Jesus, out of His kindness - His love, came to Earth and became a servant for us so we would no longer have to be a servant of Satan. He left the presence of God. He left Heaven to come to earth to live among us. First to teach us about God. His love, mercy, grace and compassion and then to be the ultimate sacrifice for our ultimate renewed relationship with God. He felt pain, sadness and ultimately the separation from God because of His taking on Himself the sins of the world. Why? Because of his mercy (kindness, goodwill and compassion) for us. He suffered all that, so we wouldn’t have to.
We try to teach our children kindness. We as parents are obligated to teach our children how to be like Jesus - our example. We teach kindness by showing our children how to feel for others. Reminding them that we want to treat others the way we want to be treated. And to look for those children who aren’t treated well and make friends with them and definitely not to participate in being unkind. We tell them they should play with any child that wants to play. We asked them how they would feel if they wanted to play with someone and were told they couldn’t. That gave them a different point of view.
Using this with both our children has also taught me that we shouldn’t get our feelings hurt if someone doesn’t speak to us or for us not to speak with someone because they didn’t speak with us first. If we think about it, they are probably thinking the same thing. We should make the first move. We need to be the first to smile, the first to extend our hand in a handshake or our arms in a hug. How much pleasure does it give you to see someone smile at you? Now give someone else that same pleasure. We need to show ourselves full of kindness (friendly).
Isaiah 54:10 (Amplified)
For though the mountains should depart and the hills be shaken or removed, yet My love and kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace and completeness be removed, says the Lord, Who has compassion on you.
In my mind, there is never a reason to be unkind to someone. Being unkind to me shows a misconception of superiority. God did not make anyone more superior than the other. We are the same in God’s eyes and we should treat others in that way.
I know that it can be hard, especially if someone is mistreating you, to find kindness in that situation. However, look to Jesus. The Pharisees were trying to kill Jesus, they were constantly arguing with Him about His beliefs and philosophy. At times He was quiet and at other times He spoke calmly without agitation.
Ephesians 6:12 (Amplified)
For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.
We need to remember that there are influences outside of just what we can see. Our enemy is not the people in our lives but Satan and his cronies whose only goal is to cheat us out of the peace that God has given us. What better way to do it than having us battling against one another. It’s kind of like while you’re watching one hand the other one is stealing from you. We also need to think that, even though maybe someone is being rude, that person may be having issues in their life where they feel out of control or desperate and don’t know how to channel it and it comes out in bad form.
We are not going to be judged on how people treat us but by how we react to the way people treat us.
Matthew 7:12 (Amplified)
So then, whatever you desire that others would do to and for you, even so do also to and for them, for this is (sums up) the Law and the Prophets.
Remember that we are to be examples of Christ. One reason Christians get such a bad rap is because a lot of times we do not “practice what we preach”. We say we are to love and yet we tear down anyone that doesn’t do/act how we expect them to.
Be blessed!
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