Character Qualities of a Christian: Kindness

           What happened to kindness in today’s culture? Maybe a better question for today’s culture is, “What is kindness?” If we look to the Bible, we see God’s kindness defined in several ways. God’s love is everlasting (Isaiah 54:8), His kindness is merciful, meaning that we don’t deserve it (Psalm 117:2, 119:76, Titus 3:4), His kindness is great (Joel 2:13), God demonstrated His kindness by sending Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:7), He also showed his kindness through his deliverance of Israel out of Egypt (1 Samuel 15:6), God’s power is marvelous (Psalm 31:21), and last but not least, God’s kindness is abundant (Nehemiah 9:17).

           

           Kindness is a difficult quality to have and keep, but it is attainable. No one’s kindness can be as perfect, as forgiving, and as abundant as God’s kindness. I looked up the difference between kindness and love, and the difference is that love tends to be a feeling, while kindness tends to be an action. So God’s love for us is his feelings toward us, and his kindness toward us is the miracles (small or large) that God does for us. To put this concept in a more concrete form, take the Exodus, for example. God loved his nation, the Israelites, so He was kind to them by delivering them out of Egypt. Kindness usually flows out of a heart full of love. If I am very angry at someone, I am not likely to go and clean their car for them or give them a present. Use this equation: Love + Action = Kindness.

            

           So all of this is like a jumbled dinner where none of the components seem to go together, but it is all headed toward a general point. You have God’s perfect kindness at the top, and our imperfect kindness on the bottom, and we have to climb the rope. We can never and will never (until we have our glorified bodies) reach the top. Everybody may be different places on the rope. You may be an overly kind person who enjoys showering people with gifts and words of encouragement or you could be an Ebenezer Scrooge before his change, but most of us are somewhere in between those two.

            

           Here comes the practical part. How do we climb the rope? Well, first of all, I think that as I work on climbing, I tend to slide back down a little bit. Many times, it feels like the “one step forward and two steps backward” feeling, where I’m not really gaining ground, but if you are praying for strength and going out of your way to be kind, you will find yourself steadily moving up the rope. I think the main aspect of kindness that I struggle with is letting people have their way and not forcing my opinion or idea on them. In order to improve in kindness, we need to be purposefully going out of our way to be kind to someone, and that can be anything from a gift to a word of encouragement. Let the other person have their way. Go out for lunch where they want to. In Matthew 5, Jesus says to love your enemies, and as I previously mentioned, kindness flows out of love. In order to show kindness to someone, you almost always have to start by loving them.

            

           So after throwing all of that at you and calling it “practical”, I just want to throw out another question, “Why should we be kind to anyone?” It is certainly a valid question, and the answer is simple, “God changed us by pouring out undeserved kindness on us.”¹ That’s it; God modeled kindness to us so that we would be able to show kindness to others. If we think about what God did for us, I think we can find a way to be kind to others, no matter what. God’s kindness to us should inspire us to climb the rope.

            

           Before wrapping up this article, I should go back and attempt to answer the question that I asked to start the article. The question was, “What happened to kindness in today’s culture?” Kindness has not disappeared, but the amount of it in the world has lessened. I think that part of the reason for its lessening can be credited to the fact that climbing the rope, as I call it, is a grueling process, and many don’t want to work for the prize at the end. So the question is, are you going to strive to climb the rope as I am. I mess up a lot, and so will you, but most of us have nowhere to go but up. Climb the rope.

¹ J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power That Made Christianity Revolutionary (2011), pg. 115

Character Qualities of a Christian: Generosity

           This is an issue that is difficult to find an answer to. Many people have a hard time deciding how much money to tithe or give to charity or anything else. The popular thing currently is the eradication of poverty, which is a fine goal, but is it really going to happen. You may feel guilty because you eat three meals a day combined with four or five snacks and there are children in India who survive on three grains of rice a day. The Dollar-a-Drink movement that was started several years ago was a movement to get people to take the dollars they would use on a soft drink, get water instead, and donate the money to the Dollar-a-Drink foundation. That movement has gone one to donate several hundred thousand dollars towards digging wells for children in Africa, and that is great!

            

           So the question is, “What should we do with the money and resources that God has blessed us with?” Well, first of all, everyone has been given different amounts of financial versatility. Matthew 6:19-34 talks a good deal about wealth and possessions, but once again it leaves it in a sort of “viewer’s discretion”. It gives general guidelines and advice, but it doesn’t give an absolute “thus sayeth the LORD” type of command, which makes it so that you have to decide what you are going to do.

            

           You have two things that are commands to do with your money: 1. Tithe ten-percent of it and 2. Take the tithing money out first. Some Christians outline their budget and then whatever is left they tithe (which usually is not much). Another thing that Christian’s sometimes do is say, “Well, I’ve tithed, so the rest is for me!” This attitude is wrong, because God gave you the resources that you have in order to bring glory to Himself. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” I think that this applies to how you spend your money, too. This doesn’t mean that you can’t buy a nice television or eat good food, but be a good steward of the possessions that God has given you.

           

           Something that I have been thinking about recently is the fact that no matter how many orphans in Africa we feed, they will still be hungry tomorrow. Before I continue, I would like to make it very clear that giving money for foundations like Project Saturate, Dollar-a-Drink, and World Vision is a great thing and a very good use of your money. However, these impoverished people need something greater, something that satisfies forever: the bread of life (John 6:35). If we do not communicate the gospel clearly to these children, we are not really helping them.

            

           Another mistake that some people make is thinking that the only thing you should do with your money is give it away to the poor. Some people can really take this to the extreme and live a Spartan lifestyle. You can sit down at the table and think one of two things about the large dinner that you are about to consume. 1. This is more than some children around the world eat in a week, or 2. Thank you, God, for providing me with bountiful resources that I may enjoy pleasures you have given to me and that you have enabled me to give my money to others. Which attitude will you choose?

Character Qualities of a Christian: Integrity

           In today’s culture, the word “integrity” is not used much. Integrity is a rather complex word that means trustworthy, honest, or accountable. The lack of integrity is immense in the world today, with parents that don’t know where or what their child is doing, because that child lacks integrity. They haven’t been accountable and have not let their parents know where they are. Another possible meaning of integrity is diligence; when someone completes a job completely, without the smallest hint of cutting corners.

            

           The word “integrity” is used twenty-four times in the New King James Version of the Bible. I’m just going to center in on a few of these passages. First, you read throughout Job that he was blameless and upright and then, after he suffered, he held to his integrity (Job 2:3). Second, there is Noah, who in Genesis 6:9, where he is called “perfect”, which is also translated as having integrity or blameless. Then, you see in 1 Kings 9:4, God is talking to Solomon, and He refers to David having integrity of heart and being upright. In Titus 2:7, Paul is outlining the qualities of a sound church, and he says to show integrity.

            

           Proverbs has several things to say about integrity, and it is normally contrasted or used as an antonym to the word “perverse”. Proverbs 20:7 says, “The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him.” Children tend to observe their surroundings, including the people around him, and they tend to act like those around them. Thus, if their parents are walking in integrity, the children will tend to act the same (no guarantees, though).

            

           Proverbs 19:1 and 28:6 say basically the same thing; that the poor who walks in his integrity is better than the perverse who does what he wants, even if he is rich. I think that you don’t necessarily have to look at this verse in monetary terms exactly, but look at it like this: walking in integrity can cost you to lose your job, girlfriend, perfect GPA, or other tangible things. If you lose those because of walking in integrity, you more than likely did not need those things. If your only shot on a test is to cheat, but you don’t and get a C on your test, it will be worth it to know that you gave it your best shot and you did not cheat.

            

           Throughout this article, I have used the phrase “walking in integrity”, and I want to quickly define that. Walking in integrity means that people can trust you to do anything and that you will go above and beyond their expectations and demands, and at any time on any day, someone can ask you what you’re doing, and you respond with the truth and with a clear conscience. I will not lie, walking in integrity is extremely hard; possibly one of the hardest things you will have to learn. Now, that being said, there are benefits, which include: accountability, people that trust you, a good reputation, and a clean conscience. In conclusion, just remember this: habitual honesty – integrity – must be the goal in all our dealings¹.

^1. R. Kent Hughes Disciplines of a Godly Man, 10^th edition (2006), Published by Crossway Books

Character Qualities of a Christian

In my next several blog articles, I hope to gain a better idea of what a Christian should look like and what character qualities he or she should have. We can never achieve perfection, which can seem kind of disappointing and make our Christian walk look pointless, but in fact the benefit of our imperfection is that we always have room to grow. The following list is a list of qualities that I’m going to attempt to write specific articles on, and a few more may come up later on.

- Integrity

- Generosity

- Kindness

- Purity

- Patience

- Humility

- Self-Control

- Thankfulness

- Joy

- Faith

            These ten things are essential in a Christian’s life, and they should be considered in all aspects of life, whether it be relationships, work, school, or anything else. They also present a challenge to change. I can fairly confidently say that nobody on this planet has perfected all of these things all of the time. If I may be so bold as to add that we all can work on these things, no matter what your circumstances are. 

When It's All Been Said and Done

Grab your Bible and open up to Matthew 6:19 and read through verse 21. This passage is talking about temporal things compared to eternal things. In today’s current culture, we can practically buy anything. There a maxim that states simply, “People will do anything for a dollar”, which in actuality is true in today’s culture. So you can take this passage in three different ways:

1. You can go and live on the bare necessities of life, consecrating your life to the study of the Bible, and sell everything that you have, giving the money that you earned to the poor.

2. You can enjoy some of the pleasures that God has given you without making them idols of your heart. You can use the money, great or small, that God has given you to promote good things (i.e. giving to the church, giving to missionaries, etc.).

3. You can let this passage have no effect on you and continue your life unchanged by the passage.

            

           Option number one is the extreme response, which is not exactly biblically based, although devoting your life to the study of God’s Word is a good thing. The problem is that God has put you where you are with the income for several reasons. For instance, if you have no money, you cannot support missionaries, and they play an important role in the spreading of the gospel. Another thing is that God has put certain pleasures on this earth so that we may enjoy them in moderation.

            

            Option number two is the one that I want to focus on right now. Now, it’s okay to have tangible things, but seriously, some of us (make that a lot of us) need to cut back. Everyone has their “thing”, mine is movie making, so I’ll use that as an example. It isn’t wrong to have a nice camera, greenscreen, movie props, and all of that paraphernalia, but in the end, that’s not going to matter. Turn in your Bible to 1 Peter 1:7, which says, “^7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ…” This passage says basically that what we’ve done on earth will be tested by fire, and all of the temporal things (things of this world) will burn, and everything eternal will last.

            

           By eternal things, I mean things such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, purity, and humility (Galatians 5, 1 Corinthians 5). These are the virtues that we must be building here on earth. This short time period of a few decades is all of the time we have on earth, yet somehow we acquire more things for this time period than we build for eternity. Think about this: We are on earth for maybe seventy years, and we, as Christians, have an eternity in heaven. If you’re having trouble thinking about what eternity is, imagine opening up a word document as a five-year old child, and pressing the “1” key once, and pressing the “0” key and holding it. If you held that your entire life and you lived to be 1,000 years old, the number at the end of your life would not even come close to the amount of years that we’ll have in heaven. So let me end this article with one question, “When it’s all been said and done, what will matter?”

A Call to Suffering

            Trials are normal. Everybody everywhere suffers in one way or another. Some people have great physical suffering, while others may have great emotional suffering. Either way, suffering or trials are normal, especially for Christians. Throughout this article, we’re going to look at a few different passages of scripture, but first I want you to open your Bible to Matthew 10:16-26. Let me just summarize these verses in one short quotation, “If you follow me, men will hate you. They will bring you before others and criticize you publicly, but do not fear, because in that hour, the LORD will give you the words to say. You will be hated by everyone just because you are my child.” This is basically saying that everyone will have trials on this earth, but Christians will have the most. Yeah, that looks nice on our business card: Come to Jesus! Side effects include: rejection, lack of friendship, and the reception of immense hatred. Okay, so trials are normal, but why do we have trials? Do they always have to bring pain and despair?

            
            Now, flip over 19 books of the Bible until you get to the book of James. James 1 is well known as being a passage about trials. Read all of James 1 right now. So, this contains the answer to the two questions that I just asked in the previous paragraph. James 1:2-8 covers how people can profit from trials. James 1:2 says, “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials…” Did you catch that word “joy”? The definition of joy is, “feelings of great happiness or pleasure.” I know that my first thought when presented with a trial is NOT joy. However, written in black and white (literally), is that we should count it all JOY! It’s joy! You don’t have to look forward to trials, but you do have to count it all joy! Trials are defined as the testing of your faith. James 1:3 says that the testing of your faith produces patience or some translations may say “endurance”. James is trying to say that trials can be productive and beneficial, if you allow the Holy Spirit to change you through them.

            
           James 1:19 is another verse that I want to look at very quickly, and it says, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath…” These verses were some that I heard a lot as I grew up, and I still hear a lot (many times they’re directed at me). Then, I noticed that the subtitle or passage heading above that verse reads “Qualities Needed in Trials”. This fits perfectly into James 1, because if you are not quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, your trials will become ten times greater. In the time of trials, you need to be quick to accept the advice of others (provided it is good advice). These verses are very good to know in just everyday life as well.

         The next and last passage that we’re going to look at is 1 Peter 1:6-7 which says, “^6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, ^7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ…” These two verses tell of another benefit of trials, and this is that trials test the genuineness of your faith. The trials of your life either (this may sound cliché) make or break you. This means that trials always have an effect on you. They are either strengthening you or else weakening you. Your trials will shape who you are, so this is my one question for you: are your trials going to make or break you?

Compromising Creation

Everybody has their own ideas about everything. You have your favorite colors, food, cars, clothing styles, and your own view about religion. Even people from the same religions have differing theologies. The date of the earth is a highly debated object, which is far more important than your color or your style. Whether you believe in a Big Bang or a 13.5 billion year-old universe and a six billion year-old earth, or if you believe in divine inspiration and an earth that is only a few thousand years old, you have your own idea. You may think that only evolutionists believe in millions and billions of years, but even some Christians believe in that too.

           

            Where you’re coming from affects your decisions and your beliefs. If you start with the Bible, your conclusions about the earth’s age will be radically different than if you start with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. If you start with the Bible, you may believe in a six-day creation, or you may believe in a 13.5 billion year-old universe (6 billion year-old earth). Some have argued that the Hebrew word “Yom” is the word used in the Genesis account of creation, and “Yom” can be translated into any length of time. I contend that if you believe this, then it makes it difficult to accept the translation of Jesus’ resurrection in three days.

            Also, the Genesis account is the only place in the Bible that the words “evening and morning…” follow the word “day”. If you cannot take the word “day” literally in the Genesis account, God put in the words “evening and morning”. In recent years, the gap theory has become popular. If you are unfamiliar with the gap theory, I will fill it in as best I can. The gap theory is basically where some people mix evolution with creation and end up with this theory where they squeeze the millions of years in between the first two verses of the Bible (See Genesis 1:1 and 1:2). The problem is that this is an attack on the Genesis account of creation, and an attempt on finding compromise between the theory of evolution and the creation of our universe by a divine inspiration (aka God), and when someone attempts to mix these, we see a compromised creation.

            A quick point that I want to make is that billions of years and creation are like two puzzle pieces that are from different puzzles. They cannot go together. Also, evolutionists have claimed that they have chosen science over religion, but the fact is that they have chosen religion over science. They have accepted atheistic views, and formed their own ideas about science that contradict science. If the earth were truly even millions of years old, the oceans could literally be walked across on foot, because of the salinity input rate of the oceans. I could go on about several other scientific facts that contradict the theory of creation, but I need to wrap this article up.

            To finish this off, I could write a number of statements, but let me just simplify this entire article in this one paragraph. You have a worldview, whether you know it or not, you have a worldview because you are a living entity who was created in the image of God. Your worldview is affected by the lens that you see everything through. If billions of years passed between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, then the Bible contradicts itself; if that was true, then the Bible should’ve read, “and there was billions of years, the 2,190,000,000,000^th day…” Evidence for evolution doesn’t exist, and science doesn’t disprove creation, but instead it validates it.