Love is patient and kind… 1 Corinthians 13:4
Sometimes we are hardest on the people we love the most. Why is it that our words and actions at home can be harder and harsher than with those we meet on the street? Is it because we feel safe to “be ourselves”? Sometimes we are kinder to strangers than we are to our family.
Paul’s word to us in 1 Corinthians 13:4 is like a bullwork for everything that comes after it. Love is nothing if it is not kind, and gentle, and easy and graceful. Patience without kindness is more akin to duty – like a man serving time. Truth without kindness can be brutal. Belief without kindness can lead to self-righteousness or intellectual snobbery. Kindness is the beautiful, gentleness of God’s love that makes the rest of the actions so sweet. Any of these actions, in these four verses, displayed without kindness makes them something less than love.
Therefore, to really love those around us, we must be kind. We remember that Paul’s original Greek words are actions, though our English translations use adjectives. We say love is kind, but we should say love acts kindly. In our lesson, we learn that kind actions are helpful to others without regard to our own benefit. Truly kind actions bestow favor and graciousness, pour out gentleness and sweetness, with no expectation of having the favor returned. Kindly actions do not expect a return on investment: tit for tat, quid pro quo, I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. The only return kindness can expect is an increase of love. But we know these actions already. We know that walking with a friend through grief is a kindness given[1], where no return can be offered. Compassion is given to someone who suffers[2] – illness, loss, pain, loneliness – with the understanding they have nothing to give in return. Only a smile of appreciation, or deep gratitude. If we think about it carefully, we see that forgiveness, too, fits this model. So does mercy. A gentleness, a favor offered to one who cannot give anything back, only recognition that the act was good.
Jesus is the kindness of the Lord. Ephesians 2:7 says that God’s grace to us – his kind favor upon us – is shown to us in the work of Jesus Christ. The relationship with the Living God bestowed upon us and in us is a kind action that cannot be returned. Only received and enjoyed. It saves us. It raises us up, it makes us alive, creates us as new, changing our actions from our self-centered passions to behaviors that are truly good.[3] As God is good. The kindness of the Lord is making us truly ourselves. Day by day, we will see, as we practice his kindness to those we love, and even those we do not, we are changed into his likeness.
Anne Herbert once wrote “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” If we understand God’s primary characteristic of love, manifesting itself in kindness through all his works in all the world[4], then we cannot believe there is ever such thing as a random act of kindness. God’s kindness is displayed everywhere and especially through the Lord Jesus Christ, who lives in those who have welcomed him into their hearts. May our acts not be random, rather a deliberate display of the glory of the Lord. Oh Lord, let us be kind.
This is an excerpt from my new Bible Study called LOVE IS. If you would like to learn more, or participate independently online, click here: https://elizabethheadblack.com/love-is-study/.
[1] Philippians 4:14
[2] 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
[3] Ephesians 2:1-10
[4] Psalm 145