“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control”
(Galatians 5: 22)
The word, kindness, is tucked away in the list of the fruits of the Spirit and is often over looked for its importance and deeper meaning. “acts of kindness” has become a common phrase in today’s society and of course it is a positive thought to instil into our everyday activities. We have all experienced and appreciated the small gestures of a smile here, an opening of a door, a helping hand with dropped parcels. But when we look into Scripture and check a concordance, it is surprising the number of references to the word we find and the more surprising fact is that they refer to God’s kindness, so when we express kindness to another it is not to express us, but to show others the kindness of God. It is certainly not limited to that sweet smile or helping hand although that is still important.
Isaiah, the prophet is well aware that, the true essence of kindness comes from God 
himself and as he realises that he praises him for letting us all experience that kindness;
“I will tell of the kindness of the Lord, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us- the many good things he has done…” (Isaiah 63: 7)
Being aware that kindness is one of God’s characteristics, makes a whole lot of difference when we look closely at our own lives to see how we are portraying that in our every day relationships with people.
Firstly, we need to look at the kindness the Lord bestows on us and then acknowledge that as we talk to him in prayer and tell him we are actually realising where those unexpected bursts of kindness are coming from. David is quite sure he knows who is blessing him and knows this kindness doesn’t come and go, it is unfailing;
“He gives the king great victories, he bestows unfailing kindness to his anointed; to David and his descendants forever.” (Psalm 18: 50)
If we are willing, the Lord will choose us to express his kindness to others. One lady was sharing in our Bible study that just recently she accidently broke a dear little glass hummingbird that had belonged to her mother, she was broken hearted that lovely memory was now shattered. A few days later a member of her family without saying anything came to her door, handed her package and left. She opened the parcel and inside was a little hummingbird. She told us she knew it was actually from the Lord, her relative had been prompted to show God’s kindness to her.
Kindness can take on many different forms. Sometimes we may be asked to show kindness to those who annoy us. It may be someone in our office who talks incessantly, it may be an old relative who moves so slowly we want to give them a push to get them going, it may be someone struggling with a mental illness. If kindness is one of the fruits of the Spirit, we can allow it to pervade our actions, so it becomes automatically part of our being.
The word “burden” even has an air of heaviness when we say it, and the immediate thought is something very heavy and we even get a mental picture of someone staggering while carrying a heavy load. The extension of the word, burdensome, sums up our mental picture. When I was doing some research on what the word meant, I found an interesting description of what the word meant long ago, to lay a burden against a person, implied that a court charge had been laid against that person. When one of us today feels burdened by life it can also feel like a charge of some sort or other is hanging over our heads, something worse, looming over us about to happen.
Jesus is very much aware of how life can burden us and knows that carrying that burden can result in great weariness and is willing to carry that load for us.
letter he assures believers that God’s laws were never intended to be burdensome;
Just recently I found a charming cartoon in the newspaper from the series Family Circus. It depicted the little sister kneeling on her bed with hands clasped in prayer and saying, “I think we need to talk”. It was left to the reader to imagine what had prompted her to need to talk to God, but several options came to my mind, perhaps she needed to say sorry for some bad behaviour during the day, or perhaps some thing had happened at school that had bothered her, or perhaps she suddenly realised she had forgotten lately to keep in touch with the Lord and was desiring a fun time sharing with him.
Moses has some very sound advice for the children of Israel before they entered the Promised Land and the same advice is still good for us today
Learning to sit quietly with the Lord without speaking, clearing one’s mind of extraneous thoughts cements our relationship with him, and beginning the day that way, clears the day of all the obstacles and gives us clear minds to cope with whatever comes our way. The Psalmists knew this only too well and advised us to do exactly that
The Old Testament has such exciting stories of God intervening on behalf of man. The two I find the most fascinating are when God dramatically shows his power over nature, by parting the Red Sea and then equally as astounding the parting of the Jordan for Joshua and the Israelites. The part that intrigues me about both stories is that even though the people witnessed the waters parting, it was up to them to trust God and take that first step between the walls of water. When I read it, I often wonder if they were hesitant about that first step, thinking what if the water begins to flow again will we be washed away?
country, but none of their dreams or hopes would eventuate unless they took that first step through the water. They trusted the Lord God Almighty would be there with them, protecting them, and bravely stepped between the waters.
As the New Year begins to take shape, all the activities that were temporarily put aside for the holidays, now have to be begun again, the children are back at school, exercise classes begin, soccer practice, basketball, swimming, all the after-school classes start, grown ups sign-up for new programmes, issues at work need to be addressed, life begins again in earnest.
listens intently to what Jesus is saying.
Shepherd? Jesus himself answers that question when Martha begins to complain about her sister, Mary. He points out what is important not only for Martha to realise, but us as well. Worrying about schedules, and all the other distractions of life creates a fog between us and the Lord. Making time to sit with him and listen to him through his word, is the most necessary task to accomplish in a day;
As another new year approaches, many of us have doubts about how we will face the challenges the new year will bring. Some of us have been damaged by many different events happenings this past year which have created havoc and ravaged our lives. Some have lost dearly loved ones, some have lost jobs, their reputations, some have experienced failures and have lost confidence in themselves, some have begun to think they are worthless. Scripture has a beautiful picture of what this might feel like…
The Christmas season has started with a blast of activities and shops filled with all the glitz of decorations and huge ads urging us all to buy, buy, buy! Our city begins the festivities with a huge Santa Parade down the main streets on, ironically God’s day, a Sunday morning in early December. I was amazed to see on the television the crowds of people, rugged up from the cold, lining the streets. One of the commentators spied two little girls, hopping up and down with excitement and peering anxiously down the street. He asked them who were they waiting for and they both shrieked, Santa!! I was suddenly overcome with sadness that this incredible moment of time, when God became man, in the form of a baby who was to be the Saviour of the world, had been forgotten and replaced by some jolly fat figure in a red suit.
The Magi knew who he was because they were following the star also to find and worship him, the king of the Jews, and they asked King Herod where he was;
I read a beautiful story recently about an old Christian lady whose health had forced her to live in a Care Home for seniors. She had been an active servant for Christ, constantly involved in all the activities of her church and working in the community with various groups helping the needy, the poor and the disadvantaged. One of the members of her church came to visit her and asked her if she was missing not being involved working for the Lord and how did she now fill her days. Her answer totally surprised the questioner.
be blindly turning down the wrong path because our companion, The Holy Spirit, will be close by to remind us not to make any decisions in life without first consulting him.
I had a very exciting day, this Fall, as my son-in law and my daughter with their two young children, asked me to accompany them on a trip to the Pumpkin Patch to select pumpkins to decorate their house for Halloween. I had never actually done this before and the adventure began with a beautiful drive into the countryside along winding roads lined with stately trees in their full magnificent Autumn colours.
One of the special celebrations was the Feast of Harvest, also known as the Feast of Weeks. This special Feast was to celebrate God’s special providing of food and the best of the first harvesting was to be brought to the temple and dedicated to him
through our example and we will witness a plentiful harvest. James gives us some good advice on how to exactly accomplish that.
When my husband was running his busy Dental Practice, he had wonderful, instructions to all the receptionists who met patients at the front desk, as sometimes they had to deal with angry confrontations, usually concerning billing related to insurance companies. This was his advice to diffuse anger and to calm whoever perceived some sort of wrong doing
I have two granddaughters who were born very close to each other, six days apart, and as they were growing up little spats broke out between the two cousins, I remember witnessing one, when they were three years old, where both mothers were trying to teach them to say sorry. The punishment was for each to go to their room and when they were ready, to come out and say sorry. The elder of the two opted to say sorry first and as she stood in front of her cousin, with hands on her hips, she shouted and made a rude face as she said sorry. Obviously that lesson failed, but even if we don’t go to that extent just mouthing sorry without coming from the heart, negates any true forgiveness.
ying, sorry, begins the forgiveness cycle and when we practice both being willing to say sorry and being willing to forgive one another, we are blessed by living out Jesus’ beautiful example of loving one another as he commanded us to do.
God Speaking 