Short Thought - Don't Mistake God's Kindness for Weakness

A lot of bad behavior and wickedness gets overlooked in the name of the false "kindness" practiced by our present world. Because of this, there are people who have trouble understanding that God can be both kind and a righteous judge who will take vengeance on evil. They have mistaken kindness for weakness.

Jonah knew better. He knew that God would judge the sin of the unrepentant harshly, which is what he wanted for Nineveh. Because he also knew that God was kind, gracious and forgiving, he decided to try force God to judge the people he personally hated by refusing to give them the opportunity to repent. 

Jonah 4:2  And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

God is long suffering. He is patient. He is kind. But, He is not weak. When the day of reckoning comes, He will judge with the absolute righteous standard that only He possesses. Romans 12:19b ...for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 

That is a solid promise. He will repay.

Are you banking on God's kindness to you as weakness and thinking that He will ignore your sin and never hold you accountable? Is someone you love living this way? There is no "right time" to play fast and loose with the vengeance and justice of God. You may think He is weak because He is kind, but you couldn't be more mistaken. 

2 Corinthians 6:2  (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

Don't imagine that because God has been kind to you this long that you can continue living in sin or rejecting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Today is the day of salvation. God is not weak. He does not ignore sin. The day or reckoning is coming. This would be a very good day to confess and forsake your sin, or to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ if you are not already born again. Don't mistake His kindness for weakness.

From Mom’s Collection: Thoughts On Being Kind

Another item "Worth Repeating" from my Mom's Collection. This one was first published here in May of 2015. I was working on a series on the Attributes of God that year and it is mentioned in this post. 

Ephesians 4:31-32  Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

It is really easy in this life to get preoccupied with the troubles and trials, the hurts, the ugliness, the disappointments that we experience from other people. It is easy to resent other people’s faults and accuse them, especially when those faults affect us. I think we all feel it at times if we are honest.

This little poem from my mom’s collection struck me when I read it.

Why Not Be Kind?

So brief a time we have to stay
Along this dear familiar way;
It seems to me we should be kind
To those whose lives touch yours and mine.

The hands that serve us every day
Should we not help them while we may?
They are so kind that none can guess
How soon they’ll cease our lives to bless.

So many faults in life there are
We need not go to seek them far;
But time is short and you and I,
Might let the little faults go by.

-- Author Unknown

This reminds me of Proverbs 19:11, The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.

Yes, there are surely things in this life that need to be dealt with. There are offences that need to be addressed. But, in all honesty, there are so many things we think we need to straighten out that either don’t need to be touched by us at all, or that need to be approached with more kindness than accusation or judgment. Some may error on the side of letting things pass that should be taken care of, but I suspect that many of us tend toward dissecting other people’s faults that we could let go by.

From my own experience, I know there have been times when I wanted very much to say something to someone about a specific problem – as I saw it. For one reason or another – perhaps a caution from my husband or family member, lack of opportunity, or just deciding to wait – I have sometimes not done so when I thought I “should”, only to find out later that either that person was not ready at that time, was hurting or overwhelmed by life, or that the Lord took care of it without my meddling! Oh, how humbling to realize that my concerns and intentions to “correct” were totally unneeded by my Lord or were thwarted by His sovereign will.

We’re told that it is glory to pass over a transgression. 

I know.  Someone may be thinking that some things shouldn’t be passed over. This is true. But we need to examine scripture to be sure that what we think worth addressing is something God would want us to deal with.  Sometimes, even things that seem very important to us really are not in the economy of God.

But, it is to our glory to pass over some things, to let them go without comment, to cover them in love. 

Proverbs 10:12  Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.

Proverbs 17:9  He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.

How quick we are sometimes to speak and expose! This is something I need to work on myself.

Think how many things Jesus must have passed over while He was living with his disciples those three years of His ministry.  Surely He did not spend all His time with them picking apart everything they said, or they would more than likely have given up and left Him along with all the others who did. He did correct them at times, but there is a great deal we can learn from His kindness, both to those He lived among and to ourselves. We don’t get the correction that we justly deserve. Why can’t we pass some of that kindness forward in the name of Jesus Christ?

Psalms 130:3-4  If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

This, of course, brings us back to our attribute of God for this month – Forgiveness.  And, after all, aren’t kindness and forgiveness unbreakably connected?

Colossians 3:12-13  Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

Letter Writing Challenge for February

 

A fellow named Eric has started a February challenge based on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month in November). His idea is to write one letter or note to someone every day in February. It is called InCoWriMo - International Correspondence Writing Month. 

Laura at Harvest Lane Cottage extended the challenge to her readers here: Snail Mail Excitement - Let's Spread Some Joy.

Yes, you read that correctly. The challenge is to write snail mail - a good old fashioned letter on paper...or a notecard or postcard or a greeting card. You get the idea. You can mail them or deliver them by hand. I'm guessing a note sent by carrier pigeon would be acceptable too, even though I don't expect any of us would actually do that. Just covering all the bases here. ;-) 

The point is not to use electronic devices. He stipulates no typewriters, but if someone wanted to write to me on an old fashioned manual typewriter I would find that delightful. :-) I sometimes wish I still had mine...except when I think about how heavy it was. But, I digress.

My love for writing actually was birthed in letter writing, thanks to the example of my mom, so this seemed like an appropriate challenge to share with my readers. If you are interested, give it a go. If 28 letters or notes in one month seems overly ambition to you, make adjustments. You can write short notes. You can do 14 instead. You can write several a day and not write on every single day. I have a lot of letters and notes that I have been meaning to write for awhile, so maybe this will inspire me to actually get some of those done. :-)

I am sure there are a lot of people out there who would be extra delighted to receive a snail mail right now.

If you would like a copy of the graphic above to make your own notecards or postcards, you can find it here. 

Jesus Knows Thy Sorrow

 

This may be a repeat post here, but it is a good poem for this time of year. There are usually a lot of hurting hearts around this season, but this year is especially so. Jesus knows and understands if you are hurting right now. Take your burdens and struggles to Him.

Psalm 55:22 Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.

Jesus Knows Thy Sorrow

Jesus knows thy sorrow,

Knows thine every care;

Knows thy deep contrition,

Hears thy feeblest prayer;

Do not fear to trust Him --

Tell Him all thy grief;

Cast on Him thy burden,

He will bring relief.

Trust the heart of Jesus,

Thou art precious there;

Surely He would shield thee

From the tempter's snare;

Safely He would lead thee,

By His own sweet way,

Out into the glory

Of a brighter day.

Jesus knows thy conflict,

Hears thy burdened sigh;

When thy heart is wounded,

Hears thy plaintive cry;

He thy soul will strengthen,

Overcome thy fears;

He will send thee comfort,

Wipe away thy tears.

--Rev. W.O Cushing

Isaiah 53:3-5 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

-------------

Painting by Childe Hasam

Christmas for Lonely People

Christmas Eve for Lonely People

Here is a blog post written by my dad. I only wish I’d seen it yesterday. But it isn’t too late to show compassion on someone today or this week.

By the way, don’t forget New Year’s Eve. Some people, unmarried young adults especially, get very stressed about that when they have nowhere to go and/or no one to go with. If you run across someone like that invite them over or take them to your church function with you on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. 

Matthew 11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

1 Corinthians 13:4-5 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own...

James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.