Kindness

I wrote on facebook a question for the readers to ponder.  "Kindness.  What does it mean to you?"  There was a variety of responses.  All good, but dealing with something we do.  And yes, we do acts of kindness.  But are those acts of kindness done because we choose to do them at certain times?  Is there a motive behind them that is selfish based?

I would like to put it to you to consider kindness as a condition of the heart. In Ephesians 4:32 Paul tells us to "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." In my acceptance of God's forgiveness towards me I want my heart to become changed, like His.  He leads me to an understanding of what He wants me to be, not just do. 

Ezekiel 11:19 states what God will do for me.  "Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God."


Once God has given me my new heart I will be able to do His will and bear the fruit of the new heart possessed by the Spirit of God that is "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (Galatians 5:22,23) Because of this condition of my new heart I can fulfill the law (statutes and judgment ), "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it; You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

I don't want kindness to simply be something I do.  I want it to be a condition of my heart so that when people encounter me they see God's natural kindness in my heart that "God may be glorified."