Our spirit of forgiveness cannot be based on the degree of our hurt. Our forgiveness must be based on our relationship with Jesus. Never lose sight of the degree to which God forgave you and of what He forgave you.

It is better to forgive the injustices of the past than to allow them to remain, let bitterness take root and poison the rest of our life. So many people struggle with forgiveness, and yet, a struggle with forgiveness goes deeper than merely forgiving another of their hurtful deeds or words.

Here it is – we must choose to suppress our self-centeredness like we would suppress weeds or rats (vermin). This is only possible through the grace of God. In other words, I do not need more self-discipline as much as I simply need more of Jesus!

John Wesley said, “One of the principal rules of religion is, to lose no occasion of serving God. And, since he is invisible to our eyes, we are to serve him in our neighbor, which he receives as if done to himself in person, standing visibly before us.” The church must return to the biblical understanding of serving one another.

KINDNESS is the choice of a willing heart. GENUINE KINDNESS is the outcome of seeing the depth of God’s mercy for me. POWERFUL KINDNESS flows from a surrendered heart. The believer is better equipped to show genuine kindness to others than any other human on earth.

There is a great need to recognize that we have an unlikely freedom in Jesus Christ in bad times as well as good! True freedom is found in the arms of Jesus!

We can get side-tracked and start looking for comfort in the wrong places. So, what’s counterfeit comfort and what is the real deal?

Sometimes we truly do not realize how unloving and unkind our actions are to others. But why all this?!

Because we are only truly known as disciples of Jesus by genuine love and kindness!

We called to build up others. How far should you take this command? Well, Jesus purposely chose to build up others to the point of compromising His rights, compromising His reputation, and compromising His royalty. What about you?

The Bible spends much time repeating the phrase “one another” and attaching it to various admonishments. Do we give the “one another” commands the same weight in our lives as our loving Savior has given them?