Monthly Archives: July 2014

Love and Kindness

Love and Kindness

photo credit: Darinka Maja via photopin cc

God is not nice.

You can’t find a scripture that ever says that he is, and you can’t find him displaying the attribute of “being nice” in the scriptures.  What He is, though, is so much better…

God is kind.

In this lesson I talk about what the debt was that Jesus really paid, and what the most natural reaction from us should be to the grace he showed us: walking in love and kindness.

I then talk for some time on the differences between being nice and being kind, why it is important to understand the difference, and why being kind should be our goal–not being nice.

Here is a chart from the attached notes that gives you an idea of some of the things that I talk about:

Kindness Niceness
Gentle, Mild, Sympathetic, Forbearing, Affectionate Pleasant, Agreeable, Polite
Kindness has to do with one’s nature.  Inward condition. Nice has to do with how we appear to others.  Outward action or appearance.  It is so much related to outward appearance that it is commonly used to say things like:That’s a nice car.
That’s a nice house.
He has a nice smile.
Is always rooted in the Truth (based on scriptures about Kindness). Can be rooted in DECEPTION.  “I was just being nice.”
The Bible tells us to be Kind. The Bible NEVER tells us to be nice.

Finally, I present some warnings from scripture to those who do not walk in love.