To kick off our kindness challenge, here's a devotion written by Kim Wu.
Often we live life like we’re in and they’re out, and I am uniquely qualified to determine who is who. We act as gatekeepers who say “You get your act together, and then you can join us.” But Jesus said “welcome into the community of God’s love” so that they can then be transformed.
Jesus knew we would be like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and he said “don’t judge, lest you be judged.”
How to live non-judgmentally:
1. Be humble – because you will make mistakes. When you begin to feel superior because you are a Christ follower and others aren’t, that is the richest soil for judgment to grow. The disciples were not the smartest, and they were sinful men with backstories. But they lived in constant gratitude, which is humbling. So be so enamored of God’s love for you that it bring humility. Ask, "Why me?"
2. Be open to people. It doesn’t mean everything goes, but start with openness, and you are more likely to help people experience God’s love. Jesus talked to the ones no one else spoke to.
3. Be kind – We should all be struck by the kindness of Jesus. The people he spoke to and stopped for, never condemning or hurtful. Always ready to bless. It is powerful how kindness can change things. It shifts the way we think and allows us to enter into community with others.
4. Be interested – Don’t ever say, I can’t help but be judgmental. Be tired of not liking people based on what you think you know about them.
Be bowled over by Jesus. If we are open, humble, kind, and interested – the Holy Spirit can use that and change us. It’s not that everything goes, but just that gentleness is one of the fruits of God’s spirit and God knows we need more it.
We often hold rocks too tightly. We are too bent on judgment, too determined to show the rightness of ourselves by diminishing others.
If you are wrong in the way that you are right, then you are wrong even if you are right.
Author Patsy Clairmont declared 2020 the year in which she made it a priority to ask God to make space inside of her for the changes inside others. Perhaps we need these priorities more than ever now.
We can forget what God saved us out of. Forget the condition of our own heart. We can get pedastaled into a place of believing we are above certain things. Where we are rescued is in the mercy of Christ, where we remember our worst day, our worst choices, and how God rescued us from it and redeemed it for purposes beyond belief, to teach us sensitivity. May we be people of mercy. The world doesn’t need one more critic, one more judge, or know-it-all. We need to be grace-filled, kind, spirit-filled lovers of people.
We need to recognize that we have been wrong so often, and we want to be kind to the ones still on the journey.