Eyes Up - part 6 - Kindness

“...where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord....

Psalm 121:1-2 NIV

As we continue in this series of posts, we are to kindness and I believe that this is one of the easiest to see in Jesus and find help.

Jesus didn’t care who it was, what had done, what they were doing, or where they had come from. Jesus was kind - period. Jesus modeled the ultimate kindness. We see this throughout His ministry. Here a few examples:

In John 4, we see Jesus go through Samaria in order to meet the woman at the well. The woman goes to the well to draw water. She's going at a time when she could be alone and away from people. She has been outcasted by the people of the town because of the mistakes that she has made in the past. So you can imagine her surprise when she gets to the well and finds Jesus sitting there. But she gets something different from Jesus that she had not gotten in a while - kindness, compassion and love. Jesus does bring forth her mistakes but He does it in a way that wasn't condemning. So because of this she went back into town and most of the town came to see Jesus and this let to great revival in the town.

In John 8, Jesus is faced with a woman who had been caught in adultery. The Pharisees brought her to Jesus telling Him that she should be stoned for being caught in such an act. But Jesus sides with the woman and tells all who are there to stone her if they are without sin. Everyone leaves and Jesus tells her to go and “sin no more.” Jesus showed her kindness in the face of everyone that wanted kill her.

In Luke 19, Jesus shows kindness to a “wee little man”. Come on you know the song! Zacchaeus has climbed a tree just to get a glimpse of Jesus. As Jesus passed by the tree Zacchaeus was in - He hollered up a Him to come down because He was coming over. This lead to a revival in Zacchaeus’ house.

There are many more stories in the Bible of how Jesus showed kindness. It was who He was. He came to show kindness. He came to be kind.

So eyes up! Jesus gives us the best example for kindness - ever. If we are to be kind like He was - we need to see how He did it.

Jesus didn’t care that the woman was a Samaritan - a major rival of the Jews - He knew that she needed someone one to be kind to her. Jesus didn’t care the woman was caught in adultery - He was just kind to her. Jesus didn’t care that Zacchaeus was a tax collector - known for being a thief - He was just kind to him.

So really I think that Jesus was showing us that we need to be kind to everyone. Period.

But that really doesn’t come natural to me. I’m working on it and they only way I’m getting better is with my eyes up and seeing how Jesus did it.

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” - Ephesians 4:32 NIV

_____________________

I would love to hear from you!!

Questions or comments... Please leave them below or email secondstagequestions@gmail.com
PLEASE VISIT THE SECOND STAGE MINISTRIES FACEBOOK PAGE - CLICK LIKE!!
PLEASE VISIT THE SECOND STAGE MINISTRIES YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Comments

God, You Failed

"God, you failed me!” Many of us have probably heard these words, thought these words, or even said these words. We get tired of waiting for God to do something. We feel like God’s inbox is full and our prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling and coming right back at us. So, in some cases and with some people, they give up and say “God, you failed me!” I feel these words in certain areas of the Bible: Peter, Paul, Moses, Joseph, the disciples and the people that followed and believed in Jesus just to watch Him get crucified. The one that is probably the most obvious is David as he writes in the Psalms about feeling abandoned by God. For this post, I was directed to a familiar story in the Gospel of John. In this story, we are going to see this happen as two women he frustrated with Jesus. The women’s names were Mary and Martha and they had a brother named Lazarus. Lazarus has talked ill and the women had sent for Jesus urging him to come quickly saying “the one yo

Eyes Up - part 5 - Patience

“...where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord.... Psalm 121:1-2 NIV Ahhhh..... patience. That’s it. That’s all I have for this post. Anyone suffer from a lack of patience? I know I do and that is why I find it hard to give advice on the topic. This is why I’m not giving advice. I’m going to let God do that. I want to draw you attention to Exodus 14 for this week’s post. Moses has already been summoned by God to go back to Egypt and free the Israelites from Pharaoh. After much talking, plagues and stubbornness - Pharaoh lets the Israelites go. Moses leads them out of Egypt and they get as far as the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Pharaoh has changed his mind and is in hot pursuit of them. The people begin to grumble at Moses because of their situation. They said things like: “They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egy

Eyes Up - part 4 - Peace

“...where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord.... Psalm 121:1-2 NIV There are just some things that we need help with and that is just a fact. So in this series of posts we are looking at a few of those kind of things and trying change our focus to the One that can give us true help with these things. We have been focusing in on Psalm 121:1-2 for this “Eyes Up” refocus. The psalmist realized that there is really only one true source of help and refocused attention to that source. The topic of today’s post is one that is really only found in Jesus. Peace. What is that anymore? Look around you, turn on the news or scroll Facebook/Twitter and you will see there is really no such thing as peace anymore. People are constantly at each other because of their opinions and refusing to accept one another’s views and move on with life. There is chaos in the line at Walmart because someone cut in line and instead of just letting them have the spot - a verbal fight brea

Kryptonite

“[looking away from all that will distract us and] focusing our eyes on Jesus , who is the Author and Perfecter of faith....” - Hebrews 12:2 a AMP Have you ever lost focus? Maybe it was a task you were working on and one of your kids (or spouse) come into the room or called out to you from another place in the house causing you to turn your attention from what you were doing to them or their calling out. Then you look back at your task and have to remember where you were or what exactly you have done. Did I add salt to this? Did I put in the sugar for the cookies? How many cups of flour did I put in the mixing bowl already? You get the idea. Have you been there? There are times in life when we can be the same way. We are going along in life - our day to day activities - our gaze is laser focused on Jesus. Then all of a sudden something happens in our life that seemingly comes out of nowhere and takes our focus off of Jesus. We begin then to fall into the storm of what

I

Last Thursday night, I was sitting in service and Pastor Beeson started the service with a prayer. He started with the words "I need you God" and this is what came to me over the course of that opening moment of prayer. Take a minute to read these words, reflect on these words or pray these words. ---------------- I need you God I need grace I need your love I need your patience I need your forgiveness I need you God I need your joy I need your self-control I need your kindness I need your knowledge I need you God I need your strength I need your hope I need your presence I need your power I need you God I need your peace I need your goodness I need your gentleness I need your mercy I need you God I need what I am not worthy of ___________________ Questions or comments... please email secondstagequestions@gmail.com PLEASE VISIT THE SECOND STAGE MINISTRIES FACEBOOK PAGE - CLICK LIKE!! PLEASE VISIT THE SECOND STAGE MINISTRIES

Second Stage Ministries

Search This Blog

Blog Post Archive