Imagine you’re holding a cup of coffee when someone bumps into you, causing you to spill what’s in your cup. You didn’t spill the tea. Nor did you spill grape juice or soda. You spilled coffee because coffee is what was in your cup. If you’d had tea in your cup, it would have been tea that spilled out. The point is, whatever is inside your cup is what will spill out of your cup if bumped or shaken. We are each a vessel, not unlike a cup. Looking from the outside, no one can know what we “contain.” But when events of life bump up against us or shake us up, whatever is inside will likely come spilling out.

So we must ask ourselves, “What’s in my cup?” Is it love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Or is it anger, bitterness, anxiety, impatience, mean-spiritedness, ill will, faithlessness, harshness, and lack of discipline? We might present to the world that we are full of one thing when really we are full of another. It’s easy to fake it when nothing is bumping into us or shaking us up. But bring on a little trial, a little temptation, irritation, conflict, inconvenience, etc., and what’s inside our heart of hearts will come spilling out. So, fill yourselves with the Fruits of the Spirit so that the kindness and light within you spill out onto others as a testimony of the transformative power of Christ in your life.¹. In today’s post, we take aim at one of the fruits of the Spirit, kindness.

What Real Prayer to God Is About

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Gentleness: A Fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22 (KJV) — 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Defining the Fruit of the Spirit Called Gentleness

• The word ‘gentleness’ is not the best translation in the King James Version of the Bible.
• In fact, this passage in Galatians is the only place in the KJV that the word is translated as gentleness.
• For years, as an avid reader of the King James Bible, I thought that gentleness was the fruit of the spirit in question here in Galatians 5:22.
• But, the word in the Greek means ‘kindness.’
• Kindness is really the best translation.
• Many modern translations have it this way.

Galatians 5:22 (ESV) — 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Kindness Is the Fruit of the Spirit Not Gentleness

• Vines Expository Dictionary defines this word as ‘goodness in action; goodness expressing itself in deeds.’
• BDAG has it as the quality of being helpful or beneficial, goodness, kindness, generosity²
• We could say this fifth fruit of the spirit is ‘doing acts of kindness.’

The Next Fruit of the Spirit in the KJV is Goodness

• Fruit of the spirit number six in this list of nine is the fruit of goodness.
• Don’t be confused.
• The fifth fruit of the spirit is kindness, the sixth is goodness.
• Goodness is the moral quality of an individual.
• Moral excellence, especially as a quality that is not stagnant, but actively working itself out, describes goodness.
• Kindness is the good fruit of the spirit on the outside.
• Goodness is the good fruit of the spirit on the inside.

Kindness and Goodness Are Visible to the Eye

• Kindness and goodness are intertwined and hard to separate in the Bible.
• They are had to separate in real everyday life.
• Have you ever been in the presence of a good person?
• You met them and you just knew that this was a good person.
• You can sense it, you can see it.
• The real deal is hard to hide.
• Here you are, you’re shopping or going about and someone says to you, ‘Are you a Christian?’
• You’ve never met but they already know something about you.
• What could they be seeing or sensing?
• You didn’t walk into the store with a bumper sticker on your back.
• A neon sign isn’t attached to your person.
• You don’t drag your family Bible everywhere you go.
• So, how would they know?
• Kindness and goodness are visible fruits of the spirit.

Kindness Is Not Your Ticket to Heaven

• Righteousness isn’t achieved by doing kind things.
• You are not good because you do good.
• Rockefeller gave away $750 million dollars in his lifetime.
• Does that mean that he made heaven because he was kind?

Kindness Is a Fruit of Your Human Spirit

• Kindness is a fruit of the spirit.
• It is a fruit of the recreated born again human spirit.
• Notice, I didn’t capitalize the word ‘spirit’.
• That’s because these nine fruits are not fruits of the Holy Spirit, they are fruits of your spirit.
• Now, they originate in the Holy Spirit.
• God is the source of all the fruits and in this case the source of all kindness.
• But it’s a fruit of the spirit, not a tree of the spirit, not even the roots to the tree.
• Fruit grows.
• That’s a characteristic of fruit.
• The Holy Spirit doesn’t need to grow fruit.
• He is already full grown.
• The Spirit of God is the standard.

Kindness Is a Fruit of the Spirit You Want to Develop In

Revelation 22:15 (KJV) — 15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

• Fanning the flames of kindness is something which must appeal to believers.
• This undesirable list in Revelation twenty-two, reveals those who are unkind, dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers, idolaters, and liars.
• Repulsive should be your reaction to this list.
• No part of you should desire a place on the heaven’s most wanted.

Kindness to a Stranger

• Peter the Great, was emperor of Russia was a man of energy and great ideas. He learned the shipbuilding trade from the ground up, working as an ordinary laborer in foreign shipyards. Peter refused to accept a commission in the army until he had worked himself up from the position of private. He did a lot of great works for the good of his country. But he would also do some interesting things. One day he decided to play the part of a beggar in a certain village. He went from door to door knocking and asking for help. Only one poor man showed him any kindness. The very next day the royal carriage came and stopped at this poor man’s house that unknowingly helped Peter the Great. And he was invited to live in the palace at Moscow. This man did a kind thing and got a kind reward.

Why It’s Important to Flow in Faith’s Domain

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