Befriending grace
Kindness
John 15, Eph 5, and Titus 3
If you goodness isn’t beyond the Pharisees, you have no part in me. It doesn’t mean be a better doer, but have a better root system, be a better be-er. It is the difference between a morally restrained heart and a super-naturally changed heart.
What it is not – “be kind and compassionate”. No one would say they are unkind. “It’s really good people that are the inhuman ones.” A certain kind of kindness seems to be forced and unreal. A type of kindness where the native selfishness of the heart is not dealt with and the main reason you are kind is all about you, not the other person. Niche despises neighbor love from Christianity - morality for the weak. Subjection to morality can be slavish, vain, self-interested and therefore not morality at all - similar to Jesus’ view of the Pharisees.
There is a kind of niceness that needs everyone to be happy. Why? Because it makes you feel better about yourself. Some need everyone to be grateful. All natural affection is idolatrous and needs to be purified, because it is self serving. Most of it is based in a lack of confidence and inner strength.
Some need to be humbled into kindness. They have an abundance of confidence that causes them to be harsh, busy, condescending, and rights people off. Only with a supernatural change can one have real kindness.
You have to be in touch with your own heart that makes you more human so you can have real compassion and show kindness to others.
3 things:
Practical grace to meet needs. Build others up to benefit them, not you. What do they need to hear? Not what pleases them, but what benefits them. Harsh words can be kind.
Befriending grace. Not just giving things, but giving yourself. A mutual relationship, one another. True friends have 2 elements – transparency and constancy. They will let you in and never let you down. Jesus told us his business and gave his life for us. Openness, no spin, here is who I am. They don’t NEED you to be anything. Humility and confidence comes from a sense of inner fullness.
Visionary grace – Kindness toward an end. What’s the motive? What is the vision you have when you meet people? Could be those you have known a long time; could be those you meet and will never meet again. See people as spiritual acorns. Any human that is planted in God’s love has in them such potential, so beyond what they may be right now. Holy Spirit says that’s what I am after with every encounter. We should strive to get them to their glory selves.
C S Lewis Weight of Glory:
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal and their live as to ours as the life of a gnat. It is a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person that you talk to, may one day be a creature, which if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare. All day long we are helping in each in some degree to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another - all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
We want people to play a role that will make our story better, but that is not kindness. Enter their story to move them toward more hope and love, the way God has come into your life.
Where is the power coming from? Look to the God who was kind to us through Jesus (Titus 3:4-7). His arms were nailed opened for us. Real spiritual kindness takes radical humility and radical confidence that only comes from the constant kindness of Jesus. We must be humbled into that confidence. His life humbles us because we were so bad he HAD to die for us, but affirms us because we were so valuable that he WANTED to die for us.
Be kind and compassionate to one another as God was kind and compassionate to you through Jesus Christ.
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