Is Your Life Marked by Chrestos?
Is your life, home, and relationships marked by kindness? Kindness means more than mild-mannered and having a pleasant disposition. A person is kind who is willing to be profoundly vulnerable with others because of his growing and deepening security in the Lord.
Here are several verses on kindness that I have read and digested this week. I would urge you to meditate and think deeply upon them yourself and ask the Lord to make you a person whose life is marked by kindness.
Ephesians 4:31-32 – Let all bitterness (bitter resentment) and wrath (fierce indignation that boils up and soon subsides again) and anger (agitation of the soul, impulse, desire, any violent emotion, but especially anger) and clamor (verbal brawling) and slander (speech injurious to another’s good name) be put away from you, along with all malice (a vicious disposition of hate, ill-will, desire to injure, wickedness that is not ashamed to break laws). 32 Be kind (chrestos – profound vulnerability out of a deep security) to one another, tender-hearted (literally, having strong bowels), forgiving each other (give grace, cancel a debt), just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
Colossians 3:12-13 - So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on (cloth yourself with) a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.
Proverbs 3:3 Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart. Rebellion against the Lord occurs when we forget the Lord’s kindness.
Psalm 106:6-7 - We have sinned like our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have behaved wickedly. Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders; They did not remember Your abundant kindnesses, But rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. 8 Nevertheless He saved them for the sake of His name, that He might make His power known.
Proverbs 31:26 - She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. The kindness of God has led her to repentance (Rom. 2:4). Therefore, she uses kindness to shape the hearts and lives of her children. The children of the Proverbs 31 woman do not have an unpredictable mother. They call her “happy.” She cares for and works to establish a good relationship with her children.
Micah 6:8 - He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you. But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God? What does the LORD require of us? John Owen reminds us: "To suppose that whatever God requires of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect." The good which God requires of us is not the paying of a price for the pardon of sin and acceptance with God, but doing our duty in gratitude to God for having purchased our pardon. -- Adapted from Matthew Henry
The entire chapter 9 of 2 Samuel is very illustrative regarding what kindness looks like. In chapter 9 verse 3, King David ask: "Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?" Ziba said to the king, "There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet."
Ultimately, you and I are spiritual Mephibosheths and King Jesus is the one greater than David who sacrificed himself for us to come to his palace and feast at his table. Think and mediate upon this OT story and how it points forward to Jesus.
Zechariah 7:8-10 - Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah saying, "Thus has the LORD of hosts said, 'Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.'
Romans 2:4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
Galatians 5:22-23 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Ephesians 2:7 - so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Titus 3:4-5 - 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
1 Peter 2:2 - like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 3if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
Here are several verses on kindness that I have read and digested this week. I would urge you to meditate and think deeply upon them yourself and ask the Lord to make you a person whose life is marked by kindness.
Ephesians 4:31-32 – Let all bitterness (bitter resentment) and wrath (fierce indignation that boils up and soon subsides again) and anger (agitation of the soul, impulse, desire, any violent emotion, but especially anger) and clamor (verbal brawling) and slander (speech injurious to another’s good name) be put away from you, along with all malice (a vicious disposition of hate, ill-will, desire to injure, wickedness that is not ashamed to break laws). 32 Be kind (chrestos – profound vulnerability out of a deep security) to one another, tender-hearted (literally, having strong bowels), forgiving each other (give grace, cancel a debt), just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
Colossians 3:12-13 - So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on (cloth yourself with) a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.
Proverbs 3:3 Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart. Rebellion against the Lord occurs when we forget the Lord’s kindness.
Psalm 106:6-7 - We have sinned like our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have behaved wickedly. Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders; They did not remember Your abundant kindnesses, But rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. 8 Nevertheless He saved them for the sake of His name, that He might make His power known.
Proverbs 31:26 - She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. The kindness of God has led her to repentance (Rom. 2:4). Therefore, she uses kindness to shape the hearts and lives of her children. The children of the Proverbs 31 woman do not have an unpredictable mother. They call her “happy.” She cares for and works to establish a good relationship with her children.
Micah 6:8 - He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you. But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God? What does the LORD require of us? John Owen reminds us: "To suppose that whatever God requires of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect." The good which God requires of us is not the paying of a price for the pardon of sin and acceptance with God, but doing our duty in gratitude to God for having purchased our pardon. -- Adapted from Matthew Henry
The entire chapter 9 of 2 Samuel is very illustrative regarding what kindness looks like. In chapter 9 verse 3, King David ask: "Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?" Ziba said to the king, "There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet."
Ultimately, you and I are spiritual Mephibosheths and King Jesus is the one greater than David who sacrificed himself for us to come to his palace and feast at his table. Think and mediate upon this OT story and how it points forward to Jesus.
Zechariah 7:8-10 - Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah saying, "Thus has the LORD of hosts said, 'Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.'
Romans 2:4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
Galatians 5:22-23 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Ephesians 2:7 - so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Titus 3:4-5 - 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
1 Peter 2:2 - like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 3if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.