Devotional - Dec. 18, 2024

Scripture: Colossians 3: 12-13: Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

We have all heard advice like, kill them with kindness, but hopefully we disregarded it.  Our intentions matter.  Simply put, it is hard to be kind, especially when rudeness seems to be increasing.  Integrity used to be a badge of honor, and it still is, but you dont see it much anymore.  Traits like integrity and kindness have one thing in common, they come from within.  Remember all the spiritual traits we have been discussing are called fruit (Galatians 5: 22) which means they are developed over time.  They are the product of a process.  Paul does not drop this list on his readers without some encouragement.  Paul's letter to the Colossians is a tightly written argument for living the Godly life.  The first part of today's text gives the reader the needed reasons to accept his conclusions.  We act with kindness because of the riches we have in God.  I like how Paul puts compassion before kindness.  We are kind because we identify with the other's circumstances.  We smile when we could yell.  We wave things off when we could wave other things.  Personally, I think this should become more and more prevalent as we age.  Afterall, God has been good to us, showed us kindness, when we deserved otherwise.  Not only has God done this, but others have too.  We may not have known it at the time, but it happened.  Unfortunately, some struggle with this because they never experienced it in their life.  At times it is hard to imagine a God who is kind (Hebrews 4: 14-16).  If that is you, pray about it.  Ask God for the wisdom and patience to develop it in your own life and see it when it happens to you.  It's there.  The problem is, when we feel slighted or are wronged, we lose sight of it all together.  It doesn't matter anymore.  I am not trying to get you to attain balance in your life, the good with the bad, kindness with bitterness.  One can be sure that will never happen.  But when we block the kindness and love shown to us by God and others, we lose the empowerment it gives us.  Whether we see it in others or not, God's goodness towards us never fails (Ps 107: 8-9).  With it, we can always go forward (Ps 18: 28-29), even when we may have gone sideways.  Why can we do so, because God is loving, forgiving, and kind.  Each day, let us continue to work toward this goal ourselves as we continue to let the Light in.

Pray with me...,  LORD, we confess, it is tempting to go the way of the world.  We get tired and discouraged.  How good it is that we worship You who show us goodness and kindness each day.  Your support provides a firm foundation and we are thankful for it.  Hear us as we pray for those who are near and dear to our hearts.  We ask Your blessing upon them and upon our church.  Help us to be the people You call us to be, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

God's peace,

Pastor Brian