Kindness, Compassion and Forgiveness

“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.” (Eph. 4:32)

Upon observation, I would say that this verse is perhaps the most ignored verse in the Bible, or at least one of the most ignored and less practiced. We have three important steps of maturity outlined here for us, as an example for a godly Christian walk.

The first, “Be ye kind”; though it says “one to another” implying other Christians, I feel we owe all men a certain amount of kindness, at least until they prove themselves unworthy of it. Nonetheless, in the Christian world, we need to remember to exercise kindness, especially when dealing with one another. Kindness seems to be lacking in fundamentalism these days, but among the ranks of the godly, we must be known by our kind attitude toward our fellow man. It is very easy to get out of sorts when others oppose our views, it becomes a personal thing to many of us, and we are pout on the defense. Sarcasm; hostility; name-calling, these have no place among the brethren, and yet we do it so easily.

The second thing of note is “Tenderhearted”. Tenderheartedness speaks of compassion, but perhaps a little more than generalized compassion, it speaks of personalizing our compassion; of directing it, and “aiming” it in a selected direction, for a certain purpose; it is compassion in action.
Tenderheartedness is much needed in the church today; I would rather have a man with a heart for others than a man that is faithful in church. Compassion, in my opinion, is worth more than faithfulness to church. Show me a compassionate man, and I’ll show you a loving man, but not all faithful men are loving.

The third thing we need is forgiveness. Forgiving, really, honestly forgiving, is a very hard thing to do. If we say “I can forgive, but I won’t forget” then we do not have forgiveness. Forgiveness entails trust restored; if we cannot restore the trust in our minds of one that has offended us, we have not truly forgiven them. How easily we can remember past offenses, and forget our own; we hope to be forgiven our offenses, but fail to forgive others theirs! We ask for that which we are not willing to give. It is hard to forget, but time and prayer can heal such wounds, and trust can be restored once again.