Love Is Kind

Love Is Kind

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 1 Corinthians 13:4 (KJV)

Just as love suffers long, so love (agape), God's kind of love, is kind (chresteuomai). This word, kind, carries the idea of someone who shows themself mild and one who uses kindness.

The word, kind, is also used to express the sameness of likeness of something or someone to another. For example, Christians are of the same kind. We were created after the God kind, if you will, after His image and likeness:

God said, Let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the [tame] beasts, and over all of the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:26-27 (Amp)

So, the love of God that works in and through us is of the same kind. Our regard for one another is that of being equals, co-laborers and joint heirs in Christ. We are "in the same boat," so to speak. This kind of love dictates that we treat one another as mutual recipients of the manifold grace of God.

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32 (KJV)

 

Kindness flows from the love of God that sent Christ to bleed and die for us in order to forgive us, for none has been so kind to us as our God and Father.

I am endeavoring to be more kind to those I live with, those I work with and those I meet with on a regular basis. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts so that we can be loving and kind to all who are in the process of sanctification and who are yet to be redeemed.