Forgiveness, the Kindness of God

God’s empathy for a fallen humankind, the sending of the Messiah to save, being God’s instrument of forgiveness, demonstrates the cosmic understanding that was and is and always will be there.  God understands, accepts, and forgives our imperfection.

Our challenge is to accept our own and others’ imperfections,
and to forgive ourselves and others when we get it wrong.

Our central challenge is of understanding;
to receive and give the understanding of God.

God really, truly understands us, and 
loves us beyond our own comprehension.

And that understanding produces kindness.
God offers kindness for our imperfections,
and we are to offer kindness to one another,
one imperfect one to another, without prejudice.

We are to offer kindness to others without expecting our kindness to be returned.  It is not kindness otherwise.  The thing about kindness is this: kindness is its own gift to the heart of genuine kindness.  God gives kindness to the one who gives kindness.

Kindness is a power all its own.  Nothing and nobody can defeat a person committed to kindness, and such is the gospel power in it.  Kindness overwhelms foes on every side with an incomprehensible yet obvious power.  It is a love of God that defeats Satan and the enemy knows not why or how, because the love of scandalous abandon underpins it.

God has already given his kindness to all humankind, but humankind typically has shown scant disregard for it, preferring to transact in the hell of judgement instead.

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At the risk of putting you off, this article is brought to you by the stinging rebuke in Romans 2:1-4 (NIV):

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.  Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.  So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?  Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?”

Repentance, put another way, is a humble person’s response when they’ve been presented with an inconvenient truth.  God has presented Jesus hung on a cross as testimony.  Such is God the Father’s kindness, appearing as impotent to all, but resplendent with power FOR us all.  The appropriate response is repentance, period.  And instead of behaving in judgement, we are to behave in kindness.

Kindness is reflective of a repentant heart humbled 
by the grace of a shockingly undeserved favour 
poured out toward that person.

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KINDNESS & JUDGEMENT

The opposite of kindness, from a human viewpoint, is judgement, unless of course the people judging have the express role of assessing people and are therefore presumably kind and fair about it.  As I compare kindness and judgement, I am doing it through the lens of a judgement that does not have such an appropriate role and is unkind.

Unkindness is characteristic of humankind 
because kindness does not come naturally.

Few people are blessed with an innate regard 
for kindness toward their fellow humanity.

These people are particularly empathetic and empathic.  They have powers of being able to see the redeeming features in people.  They see the judging and condemning attitudes and behaviours of people as unnecessarily harsh.  They believe people are ten-out-of-ten.  They are believers in people.  They happen to see with the eyes of God.  They are often misunderstood.  More blessed are they when they forgive those misunderstandings.

Most people respond innately to sincere kindness.  Such kindness has power to transform moments by the power of the second chance and through the law of reciprocity.

HOW QUICKLY & PERVASIVELY PEOPLE JUDGE

The powers of the human mind are not all positive.  Judging thinking, for instance, is called “dualistic thinking” and this cognitive power is unparalleled in all our lives.

We are driven by biases, largely unconscious to who we are, and those biases run in favour of those we like and who are like us, and they run against those who are different to us, and those who disagree.  Only those who are aware of this judging dualistic thinking can keep themselves to account.  I’d argue that this self-awareness is the absolute key to living truthfully before God and being emotional intelligent.

The dualistic mind is the basis of war.

It preferences thinking like itself and 
produces enmity toward those unlike itself.

There are so many people in this world who defiantly and even violently stand against people.  When people choose to stand against people, they not only violate others, but they also cut themselves off from the joy it is to be a blessing to friend and stranger alike.

But not all people engage in belligerence so intently.  Many people engage in belligerence unintentionally.  Belligerence is the epitome of the spirit of judgement.

KINDNESS AS THE ANTIDOTE TO JUDGEMENT

True Christian faith is quintessentially kind.  And kind to the degree that it is quick to see its own bias; its, or our, own wrong.  Such kindness sacrifices for others.  It prefers to be wrong than right if there is an opportunity to be kind.  Such a faith is righteous because it sees aright.  It is not self-righteous, seeing itself as THE source of rightness.  The rightness in kindness would rather see itself as wrong and BE kind.  It is a compelling love!  Kindness is no threat and can’t be threatened.  Kindness is psychological safety.

Kindness is the antidote to judgement because it can SEE its own judgement and repents of it on the spot.  Indeed, the more we can see and own our propensity to judge, the more we can reverse the trend, repent in the moment, and target our kindness creatively and extravagantly.  Again, as much as it remains cogent, this is such a compelling love!

People will see and experience the power of Jesus when they see and experience this radical form of love in real terms as kindness, the antithesis of judgement.  Perhaps such kindness is a form of self-judgement which is repentance.

There is no kindness like a person preferring that we are favoured over themselves.  That’s a love when done consistently that can be trusted, that builds relationships, that heals the planet, because it chooses against itself and FOR others.  This is a radical love of Jesus that changes the world.  This kindness is done to others as if it were doing it to oneself.  “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

FORGIVENESS AS THE ULTIMATE KINDNESS

Such is the radical love for one’s neighbour that the world knows nothing about.  This is forgiveness in the terms of extending mercy to those who have committed crimes against us.

Such forgiveness only has one parallel; the forgiveness of a humanity that has no hope of deserving the mercy extended.  It is a forgiveness after the Lord’s own.

It must be the ultimate in kindness.  It is a kindness that has no logical explanation.  It will seem absurd to some because in the world’s terms it does not compute.  Instead of gaining, kindness gives.  Clemency when justice is warranted, yet those who receive clemency stand to be transformed by such love, as does the giver who brings eternity to earth.

The more we throw caution to the wind and aggressively forgive, the more freedom we will experience for having the audacity to set the criminal free.  And some of those criminals will get it; they will be like the thieves on either side of Jesus at Golgotha.  Some will say, “I don’t deserve this favour, this mercy bestowed upon me!”  And such is the power of love in these moments that they will repent and receive their salvation.

Yes, the ultimate in kindness in the forgiveness they experience will lead them to fall to their knees and claim their own salvation.  They will have been touched by the Almighty.

FORGIVENESS AS THE ANTIDOTE TO JUDGEMENT

The world desperately needs to be healed of judgement.  THIS is the freedom of the gospel, but none are free unless all are free.  The presence of right and wrong, of good and bad, sets people apart from each other, and love has no chance to win in these situations.

But when all are equals no matter who they are, then love in forgiveness has healed the world because of the grace that is poured out toward the undeserving.  As we all are.

Forgiveness is a humbling.
To be forgiven when we need 
to be; that is a humbling experience.

There is no greater love in this world than 
for a person to release their right to justice.

There is nothing more powerful than for a person to say, “I forgive that despicable thing you did, and will hold it against you no more,” and to back it up with deeds that suggest it is ever behind them.

When these two are equals again 
with nothing owed one to another.

When a person forgives a person like this, there is an olive branch of peace extended that says, “If I’ve forgiven this thing, nothing will ever come between us again.”  Think of the power of love in that!  That is the love of God in one human being to another.  Both are healed in an instant.

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The kindness of the gospel of God is the love that comparatively few understand, until that is you are convicted of the crimes of your sin and plead for the forgiveness on offer, knowing you deserve the full weight of judgement.

Those who experience the grace of God truly 
understand and extend the kindness of God to others.

Those who know how MUCH 
they have been forgiven, forgive much.

Those who have received MUCH kindness,
know how extravagant such kindness is.

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We will never truly LIVE until we have been THIS kind.

Until we have LIVED the kindness of God
we will not have ascended to the heavens.