What Is the Fruit of Kindness?
Kindness is not simply being nice. Many of us have seen bumper stickers, t-shirts, or films that say, “Cool to be kind,” “Kindness is free,” or simply, “Be kind.” What they mean is, “Don’t be nasty, don’t judge, and if you can, make life a little easier for someone else.” That is being nice. And while we should be grateful for common grace, kindness goes far beyond letting someone into traffic and biting our tongues. Kindness has depth and glory. And it certainly is not free.
This is clearest at Calvary. There, we find the kindest act by the kindest person. Jesus saw our desperate need and met it in immeasurable kindness. It was done in total freedom: Jesus chose to lay down His life because He was fully cognizant of our need (John 10:18). The sacrifice was made at great cost. Even as Christians, we cannot fathom what that ultimate kindness cost our Lord (Luke 22:44; Matt. 27:46). We do know that Scripture does not separate kindness from salvation. In fact, they cannot be separated, as salvation happened when the Lord’s kindness appeared (Titus 3:4–6).
We cannot make a sacrifice like Christ’s. But Scripture calls us to live out kindness in our own lives, choosing death to self in order to give life to others (2 Cor. 5:14–15). “Be kind to one another,” Ephesians 4:32 tells us, “tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” It is a call to Christlikeness.
This is part of the Spirit’s fruit, as kindness is not native to fallen humans. In fact, our default mode is to forget kindness―especially the Lord’s (2 Chron. 24:22; Ps. 109:16; Rom. 2:4). The default is to self-protect, self-serve, and self-exalt, ignoring the Lord and others in unkindness and the bitterness that goes with it. We can be nice on our own, but we cannot be kind. We need supernatural change and also constant help―hearts that are regenerated and sustained in holiness. With the Spirit, we are actually able to show kindness; we are free to sacrificially love.
Kindness requires freedom—not the kind that our culture talks about, but the kind that we see in Scripture. As believers, we have freedom from the flesh to serve one another (Gal. 5:13). Through sanctification, we are given freedom―at increasing levels―from our natural self-obsession in order to be kind. It requires freedom that the Lord gives to lay our own lives down in love. Kindness requires open eyes, hearts, and minds in order to ponder others’ situations and look for ways to bless. It may be something as small as waiting to hold the door for a young mom with full arms. It might be noticing a need and budgeting differently in order to give anonymously. Maybe it is walking with someone as they slowly navigate a dark valley. Freedom from our small, egocentric worlds opens the possibility to be kind to others.
Kindness requires open eyes, hearts, and minds in order to ponder others’ situations and look for ways to bless.
This is partly why kindness is costly. Real kindness is content with the expensive giving of personal cost. When the cost of giving is disproportionate to any recognition or even relational benefit, it takes kindness to cheerfully act. Kindness is laying down our life for those around us (1 John 3:16), even―and perhaps especially―when they do not realize it. They might be oblivious that they benefit from our kindness. They might totally underestimate what the kindness cost us. Christians are comfortable with that, because any kindness we show is made possible and also dwarfed by the kindness that we have known from the Lord. Perhaps this is why, in Colossians 3:12, kindness comes between “compassionate hearts” and “humility.” Seeing the kindness of Calvary puts our own cost in perspective and even makes us cheerful givers as we realize that the Lord’s lovingkindness is full and free, and we want to be like Him in pouring out for others (John 7:38).
Kindness is also willing to meet needs that are not usually seen as needs: the need for encouragement, teaching, and occasionally correction or rebuke. This is a different kind of provision, but also one made sacrificially when it is done biblically. The teaching of kindness should be on our lips (Prov. 31:26). The wounds of a friend are faithful, and the tongue of the righteous only wounds to bring healing to others (Prov. 27:6; Prov. 12:18). The missionary Amy Carmichael observed, “If I can write an unkind letter, speak an unkind word, think an unkind thought without grief or shame, then I know nothing of Calvary love.”
Love is kind (1 Cor. 13:4). We are called to kindness. In this command, the Lord calls us to something much bigger than being nice. That calling in itself is a gift: It is made to those who already have the gift of the Spirit. And in His great kindness to us, in enabling us to be kind, God makes us more like His own beautiful Son.
