Fruit of the Spirit Developing Character Kindness

Galatians 5:22 “but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”.

This week we are looking at the fruit of kindness. I love the scripture, Romans 2 verse 4 NLT, “Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that His kindness is intended to turn you from your sin”?

Wow! God shows us kindness that is meant to lead us to repentance. What an amazing God He is.

This picture of the character of our Lord and Friend is very different from the way many people view God today. He is often perceived as an angry God who can’t wait to chastise us when we do wrong; but this Scripture says that He shows us kindness, in order to lead us to repentance; so that we will change the way we think and our view of Him; that we might turn away from our wrongdoing and choose to walk in His ways.

Some definitions of kindness are: the quality of being gentle, caring, and helpful; being friendly, generous, considerate.

One commentary said ‘kindness is being selfless, caring, compassionate and unconditionally kind. Like love, it takes practice to understand and feel it. We share love with others through kind acts such as a smile, a friendly word, an unexpected, good deed or a planned surprise.”

Kindness is more than a behaviour. Kindness means harboring a spirit of helpfulness, as well as being generous and considerate, and doing so without expecting anything in return. In other words, doing something simply to bless someone else.

When we practice kindness either towards others or towards ourselves, we can experience positive mental and physical changes through lowering stress levels and increasing the body’s production of feel-good hormones such as dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin.

So when the Scriptures exhort us in Ephesians 4:32 “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you”; our Lord and Friend is thinking of our benefits and wanting us to live the abundant life.

God bless. Kath