Do You Have This Fruits?- Kindness

Welcome back to our "Do You Have These Fruits?" series!

Today we're talking about:

Kindness.

Before you read what I got, think about what kindness is to you. 

I know that most people describe it as an action. Something that is done in the moment of a need. 

Giving money to someone in need. 

Giving encouragement to others who may be sad. 

Giving a hug for someone that may be down. 

I agree with this definition as well, however, when studying and digging deeper into the Fruits of The Spirits, I pulled up a deeper meaning. 

Kindness in Greek is translated to Chrēstotēs ( kray-stote). It is defined as not a virtue of word or countenance, but a  person's nature.

It explains that any reaction to anything should be kind, gentle, encouragement.

What I want to stick to more so in the definition is the 'person's nature'. 

We stated that normally we define kindness as an act, but in the Greek translation, it is more of just an act that we can display here and there, but it is supposed to be our nature. 

In most cases when people do acts of kindness this is an eventful thing. It's a decision right before the moment, whether we would treat this situation with kindness or not. 

In most cases, we display kindness after a thought. 

But, when kindness is in our nature, then we don't think before we are kind, we just do. 

See a person's nature is who they are unapologetically. We are that to the very core. Our actions, reactions, and the things we say are not even thought about when we are operating in our nature.

It just flows out of us. 

It is who we are.

This is how kindness should be with us. Embedded into our nature. Something that we don't have to think about doing first, but it just flows.

When I look at Jesus' life, kindness is something that has been shown thoroughly through it. It was often seen in the way He acted towards others.

In the Bible, however, it was more under the term 'Compassion' but I will break that down for you too.

Luke 7:13, for example, showed His compassion to Mary and told her to not weep. Before, in Matthew 15:32 when He showed compassion towards the multitude who was with Him for three days and had no food. Or, in Mark 1:41 when He showed compassion and stretched out His hand and said that the man be cleaned. 

There are so many other instances that I can list off, but I would stay right there so I won't bore you. 

All of these acts were Kindness operating in nature. 

Yes, compassion is not the same as kindness. You are hundred percent correct. 

Compassion means having a strong sympathy for others and the desire to help them when kindness is more so the act.

Compassion is not kindness. Their definitions are slightly different, but I believe that having compassion is the recipe for executing true kindness. 

I believe that in order for kindness to be in our nature, we must practice the art of compassion toward one another. 

To have empathy and understand one another. 

The ability to understand and relate to people whether we are of the same class, color, background, principle, etc. 

Once we can practice feeling and relating to other people and what they go through, only then can kindness be implemented into our nature.

That is how we achieve the fruit of kindness. 

That is how it becomes not something we have to make up our minds to do, but it will be who we are. It will be something that flows.

I know for me, I am not fully there with kindness. I am halfway, but not fully there yet, which is okay.

Not many of us have reached or harvested the fullness of this fruit. It is hard because selfishness and judgemental can be a hindrance. We believe that someone already has it or we feel like we may deserve it more. 

But, I encourage every one of us to keep trying to achieve this fruit. 

How?

By not judging, but having compassion first. 

Jesus could have said to the multitude that they could have gone fishing. That they could have found food instead of lounging around all day, but instead, He put His self in their shoes and realized that they couldn't. Some, if not, all of them were wounded, and sick, and even if they look perfectly healthy they were still unhealthy in mind.

We can practice this by helping and encouraging our brothers and sisters instead of judging and gossiping because of their shortcomings. 

Before we can badmouth them because of the sin they committed or the debt they fall into, let's practice assisting and uplifting them.

This is putting ourselves in their shoes. This is showing compassion. 

And when we feel this strong sympathy towards each other and have the desire to help them, then we will because kindness would be in our nature!

The more we have compassion for others, the more it becomes habitual to be kind to them.

"Let's get this fruit!"

~TheRay