The Fruit of the Spirit is KINDNESS.
Romans 2:4b states: “God’s KINDNESS leads you toward repentance.” As we look at the Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS, we see that Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS is completely different from normal everyday kindness.
There is much talk in our world today about kindness. There are many nice people across our world who do wonderful acts of kindness. There are many admirable works of charity which reach out in kindness to help the suffering and the needy.
This type of kindness certainly makes our world a better place. But this type of kindness is not necessarily Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS.
It might be … but not necessarily. The key to Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS is that Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS is a KINDNESS by which the Holy Spirit draws people to Jesus! It is a KINDNESS which brilliantly illuminates the dark path of life with the LIGHT of Jesus!
Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS is completely driven and directed by the Holy Spirit’s prompting!
* Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS is that nudge deep in your soul to reach out to that friend who suddenly pops into your mind.
* Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS is that prompting out of nowhere to check in on a neighbor to make sure all is ok.
* Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS is that inclination when, upon finishing shoveling snow from your own driveway, you are suddenly aware that the single, elderly lady across the street has no way to get out of her garage because of the snow, and that she probably won’t be able to get to the grocery store for a week. It’s that prompting that tells you to shovel her driveway too.
Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS is 100% driven by the Holy Spirit’s active presence at work in our lives. This requires us to be in-tuned and listening to the Spirit’s promptings. This requires an active, working knowledge of God’s Word … because more often than not, the Holy Spirit’s promptings will show up in the form of Scripture which suddenly pops into our minds … thereby bringing to our consciousness a need which we should respond to.
And once again we see that the Sword of the Spirit (which is the Word of God) produces the Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS.
“Whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” -Proverbs 14:31b
The Fruit of the Spirit KINDNESS illuminates the dark path of life, to lead people to Jesus!