God Speaking

“The King will reply, “I tell you the truth whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine you did for me”.”

(Matthew 25: 40)

Our country, Canada, is being ravaged by aggressive wildfires that have arrived early and unexpectedly. It is hard to watch the devastated faces of those who have lost homes and all personal treasures in these relentless fires, but when the news shows acts of kindness, we see a different side of this tragic story. People stepping in, one man filling his truck with bottles of water and delivering to those who are forced to take shelter. Others bravely rescuing livestock and taking them to their own safe property to care for them. Other opening their homes to those who have lost everything. 

Jesus tells a very thought-provoking parable about a King who praises those who think to act kindly with loving concern for those around them and they are surprised when he refers to these acts as being for him. They are perplexed and ask him when we did these for you and his reply are incredible words for us to take into our hearts. Matthew 25: 40 

We often dismiss small acts of kindness and think we should be doing wonderful acts like being mighty speakers, being missionaries, often thinking we have no mighty gifts you use for Jesus, but his parable is telling us a different story, we can lovingly reach out to others and even if we do think that was only a small act, our loving Savior notices when we do it to please him and not to get praise from others. Paul writes that the fruits of the Spirit include kindness which means when we follow Jesus this quality rises in us naturally. 

“But the fruits of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” (Galatians 5: 22)

Jesus was the supreme example of this, putting others ahead of himself, having pity on those who were sick or suffering. Jesus wanted to show the disciples what being humble and showing kindness looked like and took it upon himself to demonstrate this by kneeling and washing the disciple’s feet. In that hot and dusty, country they were in and wearing sandals, feet would become very dirty, and this chore was usually the job of slaves or servants to wash the feet of those about to eat. Jesus was showing his followers and of course us as well, humble acts of kindness to others pleases the Lord. Jesus later in the same chapter emphases this again. 

“A new command I give you, Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13: 34)

We need to love one another so others will see Jesus through our actions. 

A friend who is very old phoned me to tell me of a loving act of kindness that a young man showed to her. She lives alone and to move needs a walker, so she likes to see others even just to wave to cars going by, or to chat to neighbours as they walk past so she sits outside her house. She wanted to tell me about a young man she often waved to, stopped his car hopped out and handed her a lovely bunch of flowers. What a lovely act of kindness!  Brought her joy to her and to me when she told me. Small acts do matter.