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Kindness (Photo credit: -RejiK)

Have you ever done something nice for someone (brought them a surprise gift, completed an unpleasant task on behalf of somebody who had been dreading it, or the like?) Did you sort of expect at least some sort of response or recognition for it? When it was never acknowledged, did you feel a bit “let down” by the way the whole thing turned out?

Matthew 6:2-4 (NKJV) speaks of this:

Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.  Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.  But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.

It is like we irrationally expect a trumpet to sound upon every nice gesture we supply to those around us. At least a bell or some sort of harp sound might be nice (you know, just like the sound when an angel gets his wings?) We have all learned that life doesn’t always work that way, and furthermore we are a bit immature if we really expect to be recognized for every act of kindness we perform, and ideally we should be willing to do such things in secret, with no expectation of acknowledgement nor reward.

We’ve all heard of that most golden of rules: Paraphrased, this is about treating others the way you would wish to be treated. Okay, sounds simple enough. And yet it is hardly but simple in our daily walk, at least it is difficult to always get it right. Personally, I believe this is because of a number of factors, but there is one factor that I’d like to discuss: Being a nice person versus being a kind person.

As one example, “treating others like we’d like to be treated ourselves” sometimes gets turned into “put other’s needs ahead of our own”. We believe we’re following the golden rule when we do “nice things” out of a sense of obligation. We might say to ourselves, “well a good Christian would act this way” and so we do it because, well, it is just expected of us. We are supposed to be that way. We may even conclude that we don’t have any other choice when it comes right down to it. So we do “nice” things.

All well and good, right? Or is it? Contrast that with someone who is being “kind”. A person doing “kind” things acts because they truly want to do them. Kind people do things because they are fair and just, independent of their own gain or loss as a result. It always helps when you get confirmation from God that such an action is good and appropriate, even though it may hurt you and/or displease (at least initially) the beneficiary of your action.

I believe we should always “measure twice and cut once” when it comes to our dealings with others — seeking confirmation from the Word (Bible) and seeking direction through earnest prayer — but too often we seem to do that last, or sometimes not at all. I am not saying I have this down pat by any means, and in fact, if anything I am writing about this topic because I have had (and continue to have) trouble with it myself.

Being nice seems to me to have an air of passivity about it. We’re facing inward as we consider the act, its consequences, its potential outcomes. Being kind, however, has an air of activity about it. When we act kindly, we are actively choosing how we are going to proceed, then we follow through with our decided approach.

At risk of muddying the water here, I think there is an orthogonal meaning to be had here with regard to belief and faith. Belief can be watered down enough to become passive in nature. But faith, to be truly faith, requires us to act. Belief can be an outward-facing sentiment, yet true faith comes from within.

The truth of it is that when we are being “nice” and we never receive the desired response, we can’t help but be underwhelmed due to cognitive dissonance.  Cognitive dissonance is a “100 dollar phrase” meaning a sense we get of our actions not matching up with our beliefs. Wikipedia (after all, it is the source of all wisdom don’t you know) describes it like this:

Cognitive dissonance is the distressing mental state that people feel when they “find themselves doing things that don’t fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold.” A key assumption is that people want their expectations to meet reality, creating a sense of equilibrium. Likewise, another assumption is that a person will avoid situations or information sources that give rise to feelings of uneasiness, or dissonance.

What do I mean by this? Sometimes we are only “pretending” to be charitable and benevolent. We understand that though we might appear to be such (as clearly evidenced by our recent act), we are only kidding ourselves because our motives may have been coming out of less than 100% pure benevolence. If we are really honest with ourselves, we find that we might have stood to gain something from our act.

That “something” may be looking good in someone’s eyes (a.k.a. “people pleasing”), popularity, reputation, or potentially even financial gain. All these are skeletons to be found hidden deep in the back of the closet of the nice person. The closet may hold many other sometimes-nebulous artifacts like good intention, well-meaning, do-gooder, or rationalization. But the real skeletons are kept deep in the back.

By continually being seen to do nice things, we can rationalize that we are “taking the high road” and thus foster a better-than-thou attitude even though we may not realize it is happening. Or, we can get so caught up in weighing “both sides of the issue” because we don’t want to be seen as being partial, or biased, or [fill in the politically correct rationalization here] that, with all this side-weighing we are doing we have lost track of the fundamental truths at play.

Those truths hopefully come back to things that are backed up by biblical doctrine. Hopefully our belief turns into faith as we exercise our “faith muscles” (e.g. by seeking guidance from God, acting within His will for us, then looking back on the outcome and recognizing that God’s will really was the best path after all, which in turn strengthens the muscle due to it’s use.)

Regeneration comes from inside out. A heartfelt righteous desire that is proven to have become intrinsic in us is evidence of spiritual regeneration.  The “looking in” (from external-facing considerations) can lead to behavior that is not in line with the will of God. Sometimes I try to be “nice” when what I should have done was to be “kind”. It would have turned out better for everyone involved but we believe we are doing them a favor.

I’m sure we can all come up with examples in the Bible where Jesus did the “kind” thing versus what would have been perceived as the “nice” thing.  Jesus was not being “nice” when he fashioned a bullwhip and went through the temple grounds, herding everyone out, turning over tables, scattering the businessmen and money changers (John 2:14-15). I believe that He was being “kind” in a way that may seem unintuitive to us.

How so? Doing so demonstrated his level of disapproval in a way that could not have been communicated through words. The truth was that businessmen forcing people pay for the doves, lambs, and other items used for sacrifice in the temple was an abomination in His sight. He could have spoken against it but would it have had the same effect? Did anyone die or was anyone maimed because of the actions of Jesus? No. Was this a radical indictment of what temple life had become? Yes.

Consider the woman taken in adultery (John 8:3-11). Jesus could have pointed to each person in the crowd (each likely had several stones in hand at the time) and verbally dressed each of them down, citing incidents where they were falling short (possibly there may have been some adulterers in the crowd, heaven forbid.) By simply asking a penetrating question, he let the palpable guilt in each person do its work, until everyone had thought better of it and had walked away.

Rather than rationalizing away the fact that genuine sin had in fact occurred or watering it down, He embraced the sinner and not the sin with “neither do I condemn you” by pairing it with a simple, yet penetrating suffix: “go and sin no more.” I believe too often we’re tempted to water down our real feelings when someone we know does something damaging to themselves, yet are we truly acting in their best interest, as a true friend would?

The challenging thing for us is: Jesus calls us to stand up for things that are offensive to the world. He boldly proclaimed on more than one occasion that He was the only path to God (remember John 14:6 where Jesus states: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me”?) This literally enraged the Pharisees and Sadducees at the time, who were shocked and angered that someone could even pretend to be the Messiah.

By taking the path of lesser resistance, Jesus could have been “nice” about it and declared this fact privately within earshot of only His disciples. Instead, Jesus chose to do the “kind” thing by declaring the gravity of His divine calling and mission to literally save the world. It is interesting to me that no other religious figure ever claimed to be the literal Son of God, so it turns out (in hindsight) to be a critical distinction for us Christians.

Jesus publicly rebuked the Pharisees to their faces (see Matthew 15:6-8, Matthew 22:18, Matthew 23:13-15, 23). He chastised them for valuing whited sepulchers, yet He knew (and they knew) there were only dead bones within (Matthew 23:27). He discussed the “cup that was cleansed on the outside for all to see” (i.e. our nice acts), but their insides were full of extortion (Matthew 23:25-26). These were hardly passive acts intended to be nice and keep the peace, rather they were deliberate acts of kindness directed toward a group of people who had lost their way.

By taking a second look at our actions before undertaking them (and more importantly, by praying for God’s guidance in it), we give ourselves a chance to do the kind thing rather than simply doing something nice for someone.

Many years ago (too many to count at this point) there was a popular TV show about a seemingly ordinary housewife who had the extraordinary ability to always make things turn her way. All it took was one wiggle of her nose and she got what she wanted.

The show was called “Bewitched“. Once you could cause your brain to suspend disbelief for long enough to accept that a mere nose twitch could be all it takes to get magical things to happen, you were well on your way to the land of “tele-delusional bliss” (grin).

Turns out, it is fairly easy to become “bewitched” in this world of ours. The early chapters of Galatians documents Paul’s admonitions to a nascent group of believers:

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?”
–Galatians 3:1 (NKJV)

In Galatians 1:6 (NKJV), Paul states:

I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

Then, in Acts 20:24 (NKJV) Paul is found bidding farewell to the elders at Ephesus. When discussing the fact it would likely be the last time they will see him alive, Paul says:

But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

Sometimes all it takes is mashing up two scriptural passages (or even verses) to come up with an insight. Paul was warning the Galatians not to walk away from the simplicity of the gospel, but that begs the question: “What exactly does Paul mean by the term “the gospel”? As you can see, Paul fairly plainly states the gospel as being about “the grace of God”. So, perhaps those poor Galatians were doing something we often do  as well — starving themselves of the enchantment of grace — because they were being bewitched by their sins under the law.

To me, this “little miracle of grace” makes all the difference in the world. It changes a world that is grey, bleak and hopeless into one that is bright with light, colorful, full of hope, joy and promise. The fact that God sent His Son, and then that Son took upon Him our sins on the cross and was resurrected three days hence is the greatest event in past, present or future world history. The fact that God graced us by imputing our sin to Him is the “good news” of the gospel. It is the best news I can think we could possibly ever hear.

I fear, however, that this message, one that comes brimming full of hope, can get lost in all the “bad news” of the gospel — noise about hellfire and damnation and our sins and “justice meted out due to the law” — the latter having taken the lion’s share of coverage through well-intentioned preaching. Perhaps the hellfire and damnation part is all we remember, probably out of sheer human guilt, but it seems useful to place a little swath of that on our palette and mix it with a dab of grace (all it takes is a dab, just as a “little leaven leavens the whole lump”) onto our paintbrush in order to paint a picture that is authentic to what I believe to be God’s heart for us.

One way to “pervert” the gospel is to corrupt it by adding man-made logic to the words of Jesus, by accidentally or purposefully deluding, deleting or diluting as we go. Another way to pervert the gospel is to place emphasis or focus upon things that, in a macrocosmic view (to continue our painting analogy, meaning the whole picture), should rightfully recede into the background. Or we fail to give this heart of gospel truths due prominence in our painting. Oddly enough, sometimes we find ourselves guilty of processing the gospel by throwing away the kernel and keeping the husk.

In Romans 1:16, Paul describes the gospel as being “the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes”, yet I fear we lose out on the joy of it all if we fail to give God’s grace its rightful homage.

For example, we’ve all heard:

• We all fall short of the glory of God
• If we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us
• Therefore, we have need of a “Savior” (one who saves us from our sin)
• Christ atoned for our sin and imputed to us His righteousness

This all makes sense to the believer and even with many of the wanna-be-believers. Yet, if grace is left out of this list, we very well may find ourselves confused again when reading other parts of the Bible.

For example, the law of Moses introduced condemnation on the Israelites who were not righteous:

But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.

–2 Corinthians 3:7-9 (NKJV)

Sin produces guilt in us, and though rightfully so, if we focus on it (without considering the grace of God as well), we can drive a conceptual wedge between us and God:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

— Romans 3:19 (NKJV)

We can find ourselves stuck in the quicksand of “the law” and come to feel like there is no hope as we sink deeper and deeper in the conviction of our sin. While in the midst of this quagmire, we feel the pinch on our skin from that familiar pair of shackles labeled “guilt” and “remorse”, not to mention the heavy burden of “sins of omission” we bear on our shoulders as a yoke, along with the bit in our mouth that stings every time we take a wrong turn by sinning, yet again.

That is our lot unless we fail to also remember the gift He has so freely given, before we even learned of Him, this gift that was given to us without any expectation of reward:

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

–Romans 6:14 (NKJV)

Paul preached that those who are under the law will be punished by the law, but those who are under grace have liberty because the law is no longer their harsh task master:

But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

–Romans 7:6 (NKJV)

Due to the understanding of the grace we’ve come to know as we sit at the feet of The Master, we volunteer to be servants of that master (known as bond servants in the Bible). Even many self-described Christians I know seem to carry around with them everywhere an all too familiar matching set of baggage labeled “not measuring up” and “be ye therefore perfect”. A few poor souls are even seen clutching a carry-on handbag labeled “and make it snappy!”.

It is like they walk around with a dark storm cloud over their heads. By not remembering about the gospel “kernel” of grace and seeing mostly just the “husk” of their sin, they are robbing themselves of the efficacy of the Atonement that Jesus provided for us when He overcame the world.

We should ask each other: Did Jesus die for you or did He not? Did he pay the price for your sin just like He did for mine? To say you have done something too evil or too much for God to be able to clean up, we deny God of the glory He so richly deserves, where His Son paid the price in full on the cross. Jesus put a “down payment” on each of us that day, and all we need to do is recognize that, believe in Him, keep believing it (and living it) day in and day out in order to claim our rightful “trust deed” to our place with Him in heaven. He paid for everything we ever did in the past, everything we are doing today, and everything we will ever do in our future lives.

Pretty great, right? Doesn’t that thought fill you to overflowing with hope, joy and peace?

We do well, however, to guard ourselves concerning the “liberty” we have in Christ. We need to recall our proper place in all of this:

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

–2 Corinthians 3:6 (NKJV)

Having this gift given to us doesn’t mean we have been granted magic power decoder rings that somehow give us complete immunity from sin. We ought to be obedient as a way of showing God that we can “pay forward” the grace that we ourselves have been given from God. I surely realize that I don’t want to be “that guy” mentioned in the parable of the unprofitable servant who couldn’t seem to forgive the debt of another after he had just been granted forgiveness from his own debt. We are all debtors to the One Who Saves, after all.

To say that our obedience helps us earn our salvation, however, puts the cart well before the horse from a biblical perspective. The Galatians became bewitched into thinking that somehow their fastidious adherence and strict obedience to Mosaic law and rituals was what made them saved (in a way similar to Judaizers of the day who, though they were Jews who believed in Jesus as Messiah, thought that strict adherence to Jewish customs and beliefs helped them to earn their salvation).

We do well to think of grace as 100% God, 0% us. It is not even 99% God, 1% us. To think we can add anything (even our most prized possession drawn from our treasure box of earthly works) to His grace (no matter how well-intentioned we are) makes it no longer His grace nor his Atonement:

And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.

–Romans 11:6 (NKJV)

Ultimately, this grace was provided with nothing more and nothing less than the boundless love of God, as Paul stated when reflecting on His hope in our Savior:

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come;nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

— Romans 8:38 (NKJV)

In today’s world, I am fully aware there are those who would mock me for believing that a being with such power exists or has ever existed. A being that, unlike Bewitched’s protagonist with a twitchy nose, has all power and sovereignty and has created the universe with a spoken word.

Yes, I do believe in such a benevolent and powerful being. It makes all the difference in the world to be enchanted by the beauty and majesty of His grace (the “good news” gospel) rather than remain bewitched by the “bad news” gospel we seem to hear so much about.

There’s an old Irish blessing that goes something like this:

Limping bird (Photo credit: HarlanH)

May those who love us, love us; and those who don’t love us, may God turn their hearts; and if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we’ll know them by their limping.

I need to make an admission. I will disclose that, in regard to loving God (and in recognizing His love toward us all), I’m occasionally caught limping in the sight of God. Well, if I am truly honest, I appear to be limping a lot more often than I appear to be walking. The thought of running is right out of the question.

I recall that self-actualized parent of a mute child in the Book of Mark who told it like it is: “I do believe Lord, help my unbelief” (Mark 9:17-24). Though we may all think we have loved God back for all He has done for us, do we (or can we) really “grok” the depth or breadth of His love, care, concern, or compassion? Do we truly believe that His hand is extended toward us at all times, during the good, the bad and the ugly?

When we’re not “feeling a lot of love”, perhaps we’re becoming a bit downcast due to the way things are going…maybe we got passed by for a promotion at work, or that long sought-after milestone life event we’ve been working so hard to achieve never materialized. Perhaps personal tragedy has darkened our doorstep, such as the death of a loved one or the breakup of a long-term relationship. Does that mean that God’s eye is not still on us? His eye is on the sparrow, is it not? Could it really be because He is somehow preoccupied with something else that is more important or more interesting?

I truly believe we’re blessed in spite of ourselves. A popular radio host has a standard response to callers who are brought into his nationally syndicated show who start by nervously asking the host, “How are you?” His response is consistently and simply stated: “Better than I deserve.”

Perhaps I am reading too much into it, though this response is impressive to me because it reflects an inherent recognition of two fundamental concepts (that if we’re not careful, we tend to look past and then find ourselves repeatedly stumbling over):

1. God’s inherent goodness is ever-present, even when we may not recognize it. He is able. He is sovereign. He wants the best for us.
2. I am not God. We ought to recognize and admit our own frailty and weakness. We are hardly ever able. We are not sovereign over much of anything. We invariably want “the best” for us. God’s definition and our definition of “the best” may not match up.

Matthew 5 documents the time where Jesus indicated the meek would inherit the earth. How exactly do we end up having “Got Meek”? I’ve heard about “Got Milk?” and I’ve mastered that one. But this meekness of which you speak, it seems pretty obvious that just pretending to be meek won’t go over very well. “Either you is or you ain’t”, it is really that simple. It is something to _be_ (a.k.a. a natural outcome of attitude and belief), not something to _do_ (i.e. not out of self-promotional works, as a goal to be obtained, if that makes any sense. Hopefully, you’re still reading.)

I believe dependency is required for meekness to “happen”. Dependency, in turn, begins with awareness. Awareness of our awfully clear and doggedly consistent insufficiency. It follows us around. It camps out with us wherever we go. Try as we might, we don’t often measure up very well. In short, we walk with a “spiritual limp”. Like toilet paper stuck to our shoe, we don’t even seem to know it is there, and furthermore it has been there for who knows how long?

The bad news is: it may take some time to develop the maturity needed for us to recognize that (a) I am not really “the master of my own destiny” when I get right down to it, and (b) I may need some help from time to time. It’s not like I can just punch ‘My Destiny’ into Google maps and voila, it will show me step by step directions how to get there. I like Google Maps as much as the next guy, though the app is not _that good_ (at least yet. I’ve heard through the grapevine that ‘destiny navigation support’ is coming in the next release).

We’re really not much more advanced than the toddlers and infants around us, we just pretend a little better (maybe) and certainly we try harder to cover it up. How often have you seen a child struggling at something until they finally collapse on the floor and begin crying? When all it would have taken would have been for them to pause and ask an adult, “Could you help me with this?” A few seconds later the problem would be solved and everybody would move on with life.

I believe sometimes that is all the Lord expects from us, no matter how old we might be. Something in our DNA makes it really difficult for us to simply ask God for some help. I believe God is waiting (as He is ever mindful) and is anxious to help, if we would only do the reaching out part. If only we would vocalize those words.

God knows our thoughts, yes, he knows us better than we know ourselves. Yet, who is doing the growing at that point in time? Does God benefit in any way when we humble ourselves enough to vocalize or reach out? Not really, though (spoiler alert) we tend to find out something about ourselves (and just where we stand in the bigger scheme of things) when these pleas, these supplications are initiated by us.

In Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles all night with “an Angel” (I believe this to be yet another instance of the pre-incarnate Christ showing up in the Old Testament), and when it was all said and done, Jacob walked away with a limp. Throughout the rest of his life, Jacob had a very physical, tangible reminder of how the Lord has impacted his life. Paul also had his “thorn in the flesh”. I believe this is (ironically for some) one way in which the Lord chooses to share the intimacy of personal relationship.

Regarding the account of Jacob’s “all night wrestling match”, J. Vernon McGee comments:

“Jacob is just holding on; he’s not wrestling. He is just holding on to this One. He found out that you do not get anywhere with God by struggling and resisting. The only way that you get anywhere with Him is by yielding and just holding on to Him. Abraham had learned that, and that is why he said amen to God. He believed God, and He counted it to him for righteousness. Abraham reached the end of his rope and put his arms around God. My friend, when you get in that condition, then you trust God. When you are willing to hold on, He is there ready to help you.”

Thank goodness there’s no penalty for “holding” with God! We’re really making a choice when we decide to hold on (and to keep holding on for dear life) to God and His promises and His chastening and His blessing. We’re choosing our desperation. We can either be desperate for things to get better on their own (or through our herculean efforts), or we can be desperate for God.

I would encourage everyone I know and love to beg to have the attitude of walking with a limp. I can only say that in my personal experience, I feel more grounded and better about how things turn out when I don’t feel like I have to say “I did it my way” (that was a reference to a famous song if you missed it). I’d much prefer to walk with a limp if that’s what it takes to live in alignment with God. I’d rather limp forever if it serves as a reminder to my flesh, a counter to my tendency to think I am something when in reality I am nothing without God.

The theme of Psalmography is “making melody in our hearts to the Lord.”

Music guitar (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

A number of verses in the Bible discuss this concept, but here’s just a few. Though not stated as a commandment, the context is one of admonition for us to express thankfulness for everything the Lord has done for us.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

–Colossians 3:16-17 (NKJV)

Another verse that describes our heart is contained in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

“…speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”

–Ephesians 5:19-21 (NKJV)