Weapons for the Believer 4.4 – The Fruit of the Spirit - Kindness

Weapons for the Believer 4.4 – The Fruit of the Spirit - Kindness

According to Paul, there are weapons of warfare.

2 Corinthians 10:3-4 (ESV)

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

We are considering ten weapons that the Believer has at their disposal. We looked earlier at The Fruit of the Spirit in the post “Weapons for the Believer 4.” If you haven’t read it I encourage you to do so.  Paul gives us two lists in the passage in Galatians.

Galatians 5:22 (ESV)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

The original post on The Fruit of the Spirit (Weapons for the Believer 4) I mentioned a popular way of looking at this topic. Some teach that the Fruit of the Spirit is singular, Love, with each of the other fruit coming from the one. If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to go back and read it.

Now I’m considering each Fruit of the Spirit in this manner. This time we are looking at Kindness. Using Kindness as the focus let’s see how it is reflected in our experience with the Lord.

            The Fruit of the Spirit is Kindness.

Love is the cause of Kindness.

Joy is the reciprocal of Kindness.

Peace is the goal of Kindness.

Patience is the enabler of Kindness.

Goodness is the act of Kindness.

Faithfulness is the motivation of Kindness.

Gentleness is the approach of Kindness.

Self-control is the reward of Kindness.

It does not cost anything to show Kindness, other than the meanness that we would rather display! Just as we have seen with some of the other gifts our pride is the biggest obstacle we have to Kindness. We want to maintain the “right” to gripe and complain, and even be nasty to others that may have wronged us, or someone we love. This is especially true in the US. I have seen many Believers take up the U.S. Constitution and use it as a Christian hammer against those that oppose us, all in the name of God.

This is not proper behavior for anyone, let alone the Believer. Remember, we are looking at Weapons of the Believer. Kindness is a powerful force. I believe this is what Jesus meant by “Turn the other cheek.” He didn’t mean for us to be a doormat. He did, however, want us bless those that curse us, and pray for those who despitefully use us. (Luke 6:28)

I’m beginning to see more clearly than ever by looking at these gifts one at a time how truly interconnectedly they function. It is almost impossible to show Kindness without Patience or Love. You most certainly cannot walk in Kindness without the Joy that goes with it. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. There is no way a human could muster up enough mental energy to get these things to work together at the same time. That is the reason they are called Fruit. As we allow the Holy Spirit to rule our hearts and minds He will bring us to a place of displaying these things in our character. These “signs” will then follow the Believer.

We must stop TRYING to DO these things, and instead allow the Holy Spirit to bring these things out of us to others. When we said “Yes” to God we also said “Yes” to the Holy Spirit, and “No” to our soul and our flesh. Let’s develop the habit of agreeing with God and allow Him to affect our world with the salt and light that He is generating through the Gifts of the Holy Spirit flowing from us.