Be loving to people. This honors God. God is love. (I Jn 4:8) Second to loving God, we are called to love people. (Mt 22:36-40; Lev 19:18) Goodness, kindness… these are fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), and bringing forth this ‘fruit of the kingdom’ sows the Spirit of Jesus. (Mt 21:43) However… fruits of the Spirit, and outpouring of God’s love and power, is not the same as the ‘gospel of Jesus Christ’. (Mt 5:45; Acts 17:25) We need to love people, but we need to bring them the good news of Jesus Christ – being one with God, and offering us forgiveness of sin and eternal life! (Mt 1:23; Jn 5:24) We need to feed, forgive and mourn with people (Rm 12:15), but we need to bring them the good news of Jesus Christ. Our number one priority is bringing people the good news of Jesus Christ, and second to this is being ‘kind’ to people. The latter sows a seed. The former is the full plant in full bloom, now and forevermore! Here is what I defer to you this day, and it is counter-culture – even counter church-culture: Be concerted and prayerful about bringing Jesus to people, and ‘use’ acts of kindness to open doors. It says in Proverbs, ‘A gift opens the way for the giver, and ushers him into the presence of the great!’ (Pr 18:16) So we use gifts (literal gifts, tipping, helping, smiling, agreeing, encouraging…), to open the way for the gospel. How? Well, for example, if the Spirit leads, you might tip a little extra-generously, but give a tract as you leave. Or, for example, today I dispatched a sympathy card to a Muslim neighbor, but I included in the small package an Arabic Jesus Film DVD, with a note about how Jesus came to heal hearts and give us eternal life. The Lord may not always call you to use every act of kindness to open the door in that same moment to a tract or a testimony. But we are called to believe, pray and work towards bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to people. Often we ‘substitute’ – mainly in our hearts - acts of kindness for purposes of testimony. It is a heart issue! Do we believe that the love of Jesus is better than life? (Ps 63:3) Let’s not, therefore, lead others to believe that ‘random acts of kindness’ is as good as it gets! ‘Preach the gospel. And if necessary use non-random acts of kindness!’
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AuthorPeter Walker. Archives
March 2022
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