This week, I have combined three
fruits of the spirit and made it into one post, mainly because the first two
aren’t really a post in themselves. Anyway, the three for this week are
kindness, goodness, and faithfulness.
First up, kindness. This one is fairly self
explanatory, most have us have probably been taught to be kind for as long as
we can remember. That doesn’t mean it’s not important though, if it wasn’t then
it wouldn‘t be a fruit of the spirit. And although the things we do to be kind aren’t
exactly revolutionary, we have to try and occasionally imagine the treatment we
get from unkind people; then suddenly those little things seem very important
after all. It’s basically a case of just doing nice things for the people
around us, as instructed in Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” That will make
their time spent with us a lot more pleasant. Simples.
The second of the trio, goodness, is really difficult to
define; there are so many ways we could look at it. The first dictionary
definition for it is “the quality of being good.” What we could say from that
is that goodness is simply doing what God would be pleased with, what is good
in his eyes. Maybe it could be almost combined with the word “godliness,” as
they are really quite similar in meaning. I’m going to try and live in
goodliness?!
Finally for now, is faithfulness. This is another one that
can be used in a number of different contexts, but the one I’m going to start
with is in the way of being perseverant. I would say that there are three main
things that we can be faithful/perseverant with, the same three things I talked
about with patience. Firstly, other people; if we give up being friends with
someone for just one or two small things, then we won’t end up with any friends,
we have to be faithful to those people. When they offend you, there is a chance
that they are having a hard time of it, and that’s when they need your help
most. Next, is things, I won’t bother explaining this one as it’s practically
the same as being patient with something, which I explained in my last post.
And lastly, God; we have to be faithful to him. That can be hard for new
Christians especially as they sometimes get the misconception that once they
accept God their problems will disappear into thin air, which is not the case (unfortunately!) But the good news is that if we are faithful
to God, he will reward us. 2. Timothy 2:12 “If we endure, we will also reign
with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us.”