Guidelines For Christianity: Fruit Of Kindness

Mamie Adams always went to a certain branch post office in her town

because the postal employees there were always friendly. One day, she went there to buy stamps and the lines were very long. Someone told her that there was no need to wait in line...because there was a stamp machine in the lobby. "I know," said Mamie, ’but the machine won’t ask me about my arthritis."

A beautiful woman married a very ugly man...and one day, a friend asked her how someone so beautiful could marry someone so ugly. She replied, "He never once has said anything to hurt my feelings." Kindness makes a person attractive.

“The Fruit of the Spirit is Kindness.” “One day a student asked anthropologist Margaret Mead for the earliest sign of civilization in a given culture. The student expected the answer to be a clay pot or perhaps a fish hook or grinding stone. Her answer was, “a healed femur.’ Mead explained that no healed femurs are found where the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest reigns. A healed femur shows that someone cared. Someone had to do that injured person’s hunting and gathering until the leg healed. The evidence of compassion is the first sign of civilization.” God’s Word often calls us to the ministry of kindness. As Christians we can make a difference in the lives of others by being kind.

You see, it is not enough to simply express feelings of sympathy for those who hurt; a kind disciple sees the hurt, the pain, the distress, the discomfort of others and takes action to alleviate it. A kind Christian is not satisfied by simply offering words of encouragement; he or she takes action and helps. Kindness “furnishes what is needed.”

The reason that people are looking to find "kinder and gentler"...is because, there is a great lack of kindness in our world today. And there is a need for "kinder and gentler Christians". You would think that could just go without saying...but I’ve been around some so-called Christians who were rude...abrupt...discourteous...

hurtful...and uncaring about the feelings of others. Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit...

If we call ourselves Christians...and the Holy Spirit resides in our hearts...

then kindness is a fruit that grows...and is produced in the life of the Christian.

When you think of kindness, chances are that one of the first names that comes to mind is Mister Rogers. A year or two before Fred Roger’s death someone in Philadelphia, where he lived, stole his car. The news media got a hold of the story and before long all the local TV stations were broadcasting the story. Thousands of Philadelphia citizens saw the story, including the thief who stole the car. This criminal had dealt with his own share of difficult times, but he knew that when he was small Fred Rogers had been a positive influence on him. Within 48 hours the car was back in the spot where he left it, along with a note saying "If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it!"

Kindness may be one of the most underrated fruits. More people have been brought into the church by the kindness of real Christian love than by all the theological arguments in the world. How many times in your life have you felt discouraged or felt like everything was against you only to be met by someone who was willing to show kindness to you. I wonder how many lives have been changed by someone showing the fruit of kindness. It has been said that "Kindness is a language the dumb can speak and the deaf can hear and understand."

As with all the other Fruit of the Spirit, kindness is rooted in the character of God. One of the greatest promises in the Old Testament is the one shared by the Psalmist in Psalm 145:8, “The LORD is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger and rich in love.”

If you are familiar with computers and the internet, you understand the principle of links. A link is “a relationship or connection that exists between people or things.” If you are surfing the World Wide Web, you may come to a particular site that gives you links to other related sites of interest. All you have to do is “click” on a particular link, and you will go to the related site.

There are many Christian attributes that are linked or related to kindness, and one we often find is compassion. The Lord is kind, or in the words of the Psalmist, “the Lord is compassionate in that He is “slow to anger and rich in love.” The purpose of God’s kindness is to lead people to repent, to bring sinners back to Him.

The Lord is kind; the Lord is compassionate in that He draws repentant sinners back into fellowship with Him. God’s kindness is unlimited; He is friendly even to His enemies, and Jesus commands us to do likewise in Luke 6:35-36, “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. (Can you do that?) Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”