Love Your Enemies

Lately I've been thinking a lot about kindness. Gentleness and kindness have never exactly been my strong points. I tend to prefer bluntness and exactness, even to the point of hurting others. So I've been trying out this whole being kind thing, and honestly...I've really been failing at it.

So because I've been failing, I've been kind of down on myself about it. And of course, that's affected my attitude to the point of making me not very appreciative of the cross. I've kind of been taking the LORD for granted this past week. Ironically this led to a downward spiral of feeling even more like a failure and so on and so forth...

Then last night I got to the "Love Your Enemies" section in Luke. I have to admit, I kind of rolled my eyes at GOD and thought, "Wow, thank you for more conviction...that's not really what I want right now!" However, I dutifully read through it, my feelings of guilt growing stronger with every word. Then I got to Luke 6:35, "But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil."

GOD is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. GOD doesn't reserve His kindness for those He feels have earned it. He's kind to all of us...even when we're ungrateful and evil. Even when we don't cherish Him for being the awe-inspiring GOD that He is.

And that is why we should be kind to others, not because they merit it or because we're feeling generous, but because the LORD has been kind to us. The good things that we do should flow out of our gratefulness to the LORD for the good things He's done for us. Kindness isn't a matter of feeling like doing something nice for someone because they seem like they deserve it, it's a matter of doing something nice for someone in order to demonstrate the kindness of the LORD that's been given to us.