I am, for the most part, a kind person.

My friends and acquaintances are kind, as are many of the people I meet day by day.

When I meet a person who is decidedly unkind, that person is usually driving a car.

Maybe driving and sharing the road with other drivers is the ultimate test of one’s ability to be kind.

But I am guessing that, perhaps apart from when you are driving, you are a kind person, and I applaud you for that.

Kindness is an admirable quality.

It appears within the list of the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23: But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

In our American English vocabulary, we sometimes substitute the words nice and good for the word kind.

We describe someone by saying, “He or she is a nice/good/kind person.”

By this, we mean that person gives freely, performs unselfish acts for others, and can usually be counted upon to do the right (rather than the wrong) thing.

Of these people, I say, “Let their tribe increase!”

But some people believe niceness/goodness/kindness is the criterion upon which our eternal destiny is based.

“Nice/good/kind people go to Heaven. Not nice/not good/unkind people go to Hell.”

While God’s Word certainly endorses kindness, nowhere does it assure us that everyone who demonstrates kindness will go to Heaven.

Christians know, but may need to be reminded, that the people bound for Heaven are those who have been saved by grace through faith. (Ephesians 2:8)

The combination of all the kind acts ever performed is not powerful enough to save even one of us.

The only cleansing agent that can remove the barrier of sin, the great separator between God and man, is Christ’s blood.

I love contemporary Christian songs.

I also love the old hymns we sang in the little church where I grew up. Those songs referenced blood more often than do the songs we sing in the wonderful church I am a part of today.

We sang There’s Power in the Blood, There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood, and Are You Washed in the Blood?

One old hymn included this line: When I see the blood, I will pass over you.

This song referenced the blood of lambs painted on doorposts on the night the death angel passed through Egypt.

That “saving” blood was a representation of the pure blood of Christ that would be shed centuries later to save you and me.

The ultimate kindness shown to mankind was shown in red: the blood of Jesus.

I found a graphic that represents this truth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep being kind. You will be a happier person, and the world will be a nicer place.

But don’t count on your kindness to save you.