Kindness part 3
When you dig down deep enough, you always seem to find that the things you take for granted--Biblically speaking--are upside down and backwards. This selfish, self-centered carnal mind that we so often rely on is always just... wrong. Let me explain. We think it's all about getting. Because we feel this God-shaped void inside us. So we try to fill it. That's what the entire book of Ecclesiastes is about, right? Trying any and every thing to fill that void. But a God-shaped void can only be filled by God. So when we spend all of our time, talent, and treasure looking for love in all the wrong places we end up robbing ourselves of the gift we've been given. We end up missing out on what we already have because we don't know and believe that we have it. And that's why God poured out His Spirit on all flesh. The Holy Spirit--the mind of Christ--is our love receptor. He is the Spirit of truth that leads and guides us into all truth. Into the upside down, backwards economy of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of love. And that's why Jesus always said things like, "And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last" (Luke 13:30). He was trying to get us to understand just how different the Kingdom really is. "Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world..." (John 18:36). So now that I've (hopefully) laid some foundation for a different way of thinking, let me quote my verse for today. Proverbs 19:22, "The desire of a man is his kindness: and a poor man is better than a liar." Think about that for a minute. A man's desire is HIS kindness. Not the kindness of others, but his own kindness. That's not the traditional thought, is it? We think about what we want from others more than what we want from ourselves. But that's that carnal mind. The mind of Christ is not self-centered. It is Christ-centered. Which means it is people-centered. Whatever we do to the least of them we do unto Him, right? Which, since we ARE Him means whatever we do to others we do to ourselves. So instead of expecting things from others--which is the quickest recipe for disaster that I know of--and instead of putting yokes and burdens on others... we need to look within. And when we see that light shining within us (God filled that dark void inside of us when He spoke, and said, "Let there be light.") that's when it shines OUT of us. That's when we start to overflow with the love we've been filled with. That's when we CAN deny ourselves and put other's first. (And, again, that means that we are, in a sense, putting ourselves first because we're all part of the same body.) I'm telling you, there's no better way to be happy than to make someone else happy. We think our desire is for someone to make US happy. For someone to be kind to US. But our REAL desire is OUR kindness. Our real desire is to share what we have. That's why receiving and releasing is so vitally important. Because if we know and believe that we are loved... that's when we CAN love. That's the only way and the only reason we can love. That's how we obey the New Commandment. We let Jesus love us, and then we love one another with that same love. We let Daddy be kind to us, and then we be kind to each other. We share what we've been given, instead of trying to always get get get. We already have it all, and it's way too good to keep to ourselves. The desire of our heart is to be loved. To be kind. And they go hand in hand. When we know that we ARE loved we can BE kind!