LOVE IS KIND
Pastor Kenny Folarin 1 Corinthians 13:13
Life is all about loving and being loved. When we take love out of life and Christianity, life becomes meaningless. The foundation of every command from God is love. When we fail to love, we fail in every other aspect of our Christian walk (Matthew 22: 35 - 40). Wherever love is, God is there and any society that lacks love lacks God because God is Love. When love is truly present in our nation, we would all treat ourselves much better than we currently do. Patience is an attribute of love which needs to be exhibited in our society. We live in a fast-paced society where everyone is on the move and in a hurry. However, motion does not mean movement; activity does not translate into accomplishment (1 Corinthians 13: 1-4). We need to bear with other people's imperfections and be more understanding since we are not perfect beings.
Our focal point of discussion today is kindness. Kindness is an attribute of love we need to show in every situation we find ourselves. A typical example of when we need to show kindness is on our roads. The typical road user is selfish, impatient and unwilling to give way to other road users. This selfish attitude usually results in the traffic jams and bottlenecks we see on our roads. We also find that since legitimate success appears scarce in our society, many people wish evil upon those who appear to be successful. The society has even invented proverbs to support this form of wickedness. Meanwhile, God is no respecter of persons and He can always multiply success in our lives without harming others to give it to us.
Every human being is an extension of God. We must learn to see God in people and relate with them the way we would relate with God (1 John 4: 20-21). Every person deserves respect. It is a common practice in our environment to treat rich people better than we treat people of a lower status. We should learn to talk respectfully to everyone we meet regardless of their current status. Love is not rude. We need to be courteous. Words like 'please', 'thank you', 'sir', 'ma', 'I appreciate you' and 'I'm sorry' should be part of our vocabulary. True Christians are not recognised by the size of their Bibles, how they pray, their dressing or the badges they put on but by the love they show. The love we exhibit should impact people's lives much more than any other action (John 13: 34-35). A Christian is distinguished by the fruit of the spirit released through them (Galatians 5: 22-23). When God's love is in you, you will not behave like an unbeliever. God's love constrains us and ensures we behave in line with the teachings of Christ. For example, we bless instead of cursing. We do not engage in fighting and spreading hate; rather, we respond in love (2 Corinthians 5: 14). God's love is internally generated because it is already in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). This month, decide to be a true Christian through your actions. Let people see you and see a different and better Nigerian.