Information Related to "Kindness: From the Heart to the Helping Hand"
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Take a look at what, according to Scripture, accompanies true kindness: "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each another, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Ephesians 4:31-32, New International Version).
To consistently live up to all this is humanly impossible! But "with God, all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).
How important is kindness? In a 2003 study of 37 cultures around the world, 16,000 subjects were asked about their most desired traits in a mate. For both sexes, the first preference was kindness!
People want to be treated kindly but have a harder time being kind themselves. A large-scale study of school bullies was recently conducted to learn why they bully other kids. The conclusion? Most do it because they enjoy doing it.
This illustrates how cruel, mean and sadistic raw human nature is. Kindness must be learned, and many children are not being taught it.
In fact, much of the media they're exposed to teaches the opposite. Violence and other terrible influences in media entertainment cause people to become desensitized and calloused toward the needs and feelings of others.
Some people think kindness is weak-not something for "go-getters" to be bothered with. Big mistake! If we want God, who has ultimate control of how things go in the universe, to be kind to us, we'd better be kind to others. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" (Matthew 5:7).
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