125,00 women and a few brave men!
My notes and thoughts from the day:
Theme Verse: Proverbs 31:26
"She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness."
We live in a mean world, and its only going to get meaner. As II Timothy 3:1-5 tells us;
1"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them."
We have to, we must, protect the warmth of our warm hearts in this cold hearted world.
Vs. 26a: "she opens her mouth"...its going to happen! Women speak on an average 20,000 words a day, Men, a mere 7,000.
As women we are all teachers. We are always teaching, especially if you are a mother, aunt, grandmother, older sister, mentor, etc. And another thing in this day and time, we are all published. Every single time we text, blog, facebook, tweet, email, there our words are in print to be copied, pasted, forwarded to whomever, wherever. So we definitely need an editor and as children of God, the Holy Spirit is it.
*We need to eat it before we tweet it, flog it before we blog it, and look it, before we facebook it.
Luke 6:45 "Out of the overflow of our hearts our mouths speak." And with all the social networking out there today, there is no way to take back your words.
8 TASTES OF BIBLICAL KINDNESS:
1. Kindness is NOT weakness.
Luke 6:35-36 "love your enemy, show mercy and be kind to the wicked and the ungrateful."
Kindness has the empowerment of the Spirit and is perfectly capable of speaking a hard word if needed.
Psalm 141:5 "Let a righteous man [a] strike me—it is a kindness;
let him rebuke me—it is oil on my head.
My head will not refuse it.
Yet my prayer is ever against the deeds of evildoers"
And I love Proverbs 11:16a "A kindhearted woman gains respect"
*nice is fine, but kindness is divine!
2. Kindness is not an action, its a disposition.
Kind comes from a Greek word "chrestos" meaning profitable, good for any use, useful to others, good natured. It is the grace that pervades the whole nature...the word is descriptive of one's disposition.
You can fake nice, but you can't fake kindness.
3. Kindness wears down when we do.
Matthew 11:28-30 28"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
II Timothy 2:24 "And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful."
Genesis 37:4 "When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him."
We all have someone we wished we had different feelings toward.
*When we are worn down, we need to be built up.
We don't need our egos built up, we need our spirits built up-most often this is done through other believers that you can be open and transparent with:
Ephesians 4:
"12to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up "
"16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."
"29Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."
We HAVE to have face to face relationships, not just texting, facebooking, emails, and chats!!! (WHOA!!!! Wake up call to this generation!)
4. Kindness looks pain in the face.
Job 6:28a "But now be so kind as to look at me."
Be willing to look someone in the face. Listen to them. Hear their pain.
*We don't just want to study the Word, but make a deposit in our lives.
5. Kindness is a Saviour.
May we catch the childlike enthusiasm of just what God has given us!
It is so much fun to give to someone who is grateful for what they've been given. When you give someone something and they get so excited over it, then you just want to give them more. Lets get excited over what God has given us!
Ephesians 2:
"4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
*Kindness looks, aids, reaches, gives, but it cannot save! Our job is to point others to THE Saviour, because we cannot be anyone's everything!
6. Kindness has good memory.
When we start to forget the kindnesses God has given, we begin to rebel. Remember how good God has been!
Hosea 11:4 "I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck
and bent down to feed them."
Beth shared a story about her dog that all she has to do is pick up the leash and her dog grabs the end of it and takes off. She is just so excited to be walking with "her master". Jesus wants us to grab on!
God has never let you go and He always leads with kindness.
7. Kindness craves an outlet.
If you and I are people with good memories of what God has done for us, we cannot hold it in!
II Samuel 9:1 "David asked, "Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake?"
When we have it, we want to give it!
We have an overflow, lets give some away!
*God is arming His people with the sword of the Spirit. We don't need to allow little things to tear us apart, but stand together, shoulder to shoulder, so we can tell the world of Jesus Christ our Lord!
Beth told another story about her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend (now her husband). Beth asked her, "what makes him special?" and her daughter replied, "he's the kindest man I ever met."
She then shared this story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89164759 and then went into the story out of Acts 28:"1Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. 2The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold."
She shared part of an article about countries and charitable giving (can be found here: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/press/charitable-behavior-153-countries,1451614.html
basically Malta, thousands of years later, is still a "kind" country!
8. Kindness leaves a legacy!
You have a spiritual line, is it worth it for us to break free from all the stuff that causes bondage to see those who are coming behind us live in liberty? Do not ever give up on your loved ones!
Our society is "all about me" - make a choice to be grateful. to be kind. to realize what you have been given and to pour into the lives of others. make a decision today to cry out for wisdom.
And just be kind to people! That is what we, as Christians, are call to do.
*Crave an opportunity to share it and show it!
More notes on the subject from Beth:
"To love one another is not passive, and it can't be just with words. It must be with actions and attitude. It means that just as Christ laid down His life for us, so we are to lay our lives down for one another. We lay aside everything that our old self wants, the need to retaliate when we are hurt, position, popularity, human praise, earthly possessions...our egos are not longer central. We are no longer driven to impress. We no longer have to have our own way. All the successes in this world become nothing, because now our desire is to love one another, so that all will know and believe in the love of Christ."
John 13: 34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
"In this current age of technology, the people of all the nations have now become our neighbors. We are now aware and as believers, must respond to the needs of the world if we are to demonstrate love as God does....We are to be peacemakers, reconcilers, restorers, characterized by diligence and others-centeredness. We are to be unified and like-minded within the church so that we join together for one purpose. This is to love, that we set aside our lives completely for the lives of others."
Wow! Need I say it was an amazing time together! We all need a reminder of kindness in our lives...and I'm top of the list! Trust me, I realize that. It was a wonderful weekend, and yet a tough weekend all in one. God is good! Let us not forget that! And let us share His kindness with everyone....so get filled up and then start splashing on those around you! Write a letter. Make a phone call. Send a card. Go to lunch. Go out for coffee. Give a hug. Anything to let others know you love them, but more importantly that God loves them! May our focus ALWAYS be to point folks to HIM!!!
