Kindness in Relation to Trust and Endurance

You might say that adopting an attitude of kindness has little to do with resisting provocation. On the contrary, kindness is a motivation to action. Even when someone insults us, we can show them that we are not offended by their actions, by our expression of kindness towards them. Kindness is love expressing itself through our manner, words and deeds.

Kindness turns the other cheek when people strike us (Matthew 5:39). Kindness is willing to go the extra mile with someone - even when it is not in our best interests to do so (Matthew 5:41).

The Bible tells us that we should not love through mere sentiment, but through our actions towards others (1 John 3:18).

Kindness is an Aspect of Love

Faith is the ability to believe the promises of God’s Word and to be able to trust Him as a Father. We have seen in 1 Corinthians 13:7 that the verb form of faith is an aspect of love.

We know from Galatians 5:6 that faith works by love. Kindness is also an aspect of love; we know this from 1 Corinthians 13:4. All the aspects of love work in conjunction with each other and are maintained in balance. Love is the nature of God, and therefore, is something that we receive from Him by the Holy Spirit. Trust is something that we receive from God just as much as kindness is something that we receive from God.

We cannot expect to be kind beyond our ability to trust God. Neither can we expect to trust God beyond our ability, or at least our willingness, to be kind to others.

Is Kindness a Rule?

It is easy at this juncture to make a rule out of this and say, “You must make an effort to be kind, otherwise, God will not give you the ability to believe Him for something.” This puts the burden on the believer to manifest kindness – something which is an attribute of God love – as a means of experiencing all the other attributes of love.

Kindness, just like trust and endurance, is something that we receive from God. Romans 5:5 says that the love of God has already been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

How Do We Partake of this Love?

Therefore, if God has already given us love as a free gift – what is required of us in order that we might flow in that love?

Advocates of the message of pure grace would say that all that is needed is to listen to the message of grace being preached. I like that and agree with it wholeheartedly.

Some people would also say that we forfeit the love of God as a result of wrong mindsets. Therefore, we must make efforts to identify and challenge those mindsets. I am also inclined to this argument as well. But without an effective, God-given means of correcting wrong beliefs and attitudes – we can easily make this a constant work of introspection, self-condemnation, repression and pretence.