The Spiritual Fruit of Kindness

July 20, 2022
Midweek Study with Pastor Edith

Text for Today: Titus 3:3-6 “Kindness is the fruit of the Spirit which primarily benefits others-people with whom we come in contact. And what a crying need there is for people to be kinder. [You could say in our day and time] we are experiencing a ‘kindness-famine’”(Nine Fruits of the Spirit by Robert Strand – Kindness pg.19).

The text I have chosen for our meditation today comes from a letter of Paul to Pastor Titus who is endeavoring to lead a newly formed church on the Island of Crete. It would seem that the people in this particular congregation are quite disorganized, self-centered, and undisciplined. The Apostle Paul encourages Pastor Titus to remember that at one time all believers were “foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures…But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior”.

As Christ followers, we are called by God to lead by example in being kind to everyone, even the people with whom we disagree, even those who seem bent on creating division. One of the ways I’ve been taught is in doing “random acts of kindness”; helping pay for someone’s meal, someone’s gas, stopping to encourage someone you notice is in distress, making that phone call you thought you didn’t have time to make. You get the idea . Many of you reading this have probably already taken the time to be kind in similar random acts of kindness or maybe, like me, you have been the recipient of such acts. Christ followers are driven by their love for God to share kindness everywhere we go, not to feel good about ourselves, though I do find I feel better about myself when I am kind, no, we are to be kind as a demonstration of our love for The Lord and as a relationship builder that may prove to be the beginning of someone’s journey of faith.

A while back I saw someone wearing a T shirt with this statement, and I close our time together with this thought: “If you can be anything, be kind”.

AMEN!