In this sermon, the speaker shares a story about an Indian lady who had gone through horrific experiences from a young age but still had a heart full of joy, kindness, and forgiveness. The sermon is based on Ephesians 4:17 and emphasizes the importance of not walking in the ways of the world but learning from Christ. The speaker also highlights the need for discerning kindness, which brings brightness and good influence to life. The sermon concludes with a reminder of the forgotten virtue of kindness in today's hectic and demanding world.

Well, here I am again. Shall we just pray and ask the Lord to bless us? Father, we come to Thee in this morning. It's been a full morning. We've heard a lot already, Lord, and we ask Thee that in this meeting Thou would come again and speak to us, Lord. Teach us, guide us, lead us, help us, Father. Because we want to live with Thee, we want to walk with Thee, Lord. We want to please Thee. Whether we be young or old, Lord, we've got a sphere of service that we need to fulfill. And we ask Thee to help us, the young two, Father. In Jesus' name. Amen. Now today we are going to speak about kindness, love, and forgiveness. Kindness, love, and forgiveness. And our scripture portion is from Ephesians 4, from verse 17. This I say therefore, anticipating the Lord, that he henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ. If so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Christ Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, lifestyle, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed until the day of your redemption. And then our plea is, and be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Now these scriptures deal with forgiveness and kindness and tenderheartedness to fellow believers, but if we look at the whole of scripture, we find that the kindness and the forgiveness and the love has to extend further. Matthew 5.44 says, But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. Luke 7.35, But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the highest. For he is kind unto the unkind and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, kind to the unkind and to the evil, as your Father in heaven is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged. Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned. Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure ye meet with all, it shall be measured unto you again. And in that wonderful verse, in 1 Corinthians 13.4, Charity, love, suffereth wrong, and is kind. Now kindness is a forgotten virtue in our world today. Life is so hectic, it's so busy, it's so demanding, that it takes every bit of the human being to survive, let alone be kind. There's no time to cope. But kindness has been the thing that often has touched souls, lost souls. It doesn't just take a word of witness, but often it has been kindness, which has been the means to reach the lost. And without kindness, it's going to be very difficult to reach them. Kindness has been the thing that sometimes has given another Christian, a brother or a sister, the courage to not give up, and to face the onslaughts of Satan that come against them. Sometimes it's just a little touch of kindness that can help and lift up another one. Now Job, you know, Job with his three friends, I think the sores on Job and all that he went through, the suffering, would have been so much easier if his friends had taken the figurative ointment of kindness and that that had eased those sores. He suffered for the lack of kindness. And the man by the wayside, would he ever forget the unkindness of the religious Levites and the priests who passed by on the other side, and the kindness of the Samaritan who stopped and ministered to him. Kindness. Now kindness, I'm not only talking about speaking kindly and acts of kindness, but an attitude of kindness. Do we have an attitude of kindness when we deal with others? The love that covers a multitude of sins in our speech and in our reactions. But if you look at this verse, there is a basis for our kindness. Why must we be kind? Why should we be kind? And it says in this verse at the end, it says, Even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Now let us just think for a moment. The Lord Jesus left Heaven's glory. He lived as a human with human limitations in the vicissitudes of life. He suffered tortures. His back became an open field. In Psalm 129 verse 3, it says, Flowers ploughed open my back, and they made them long furrows. He died on the cross. He rose, triumphed, and presented Himself before God as the perfect sacrifice that was sacrificed for us. Why did He do that? It was to gain our forgiveness. And how can we hesitate to forgive others when He did so much to gain our forgiveness? Even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Now, we all remember Peter. He obviously found it very hard to forgive his brother. He'd obviously probably forgiven him surely about five or six times. He said, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother? Shall I forgive him another time? Seven times? I mean, his wings would have been evidence if he forgave seven times. It's an amazing amount of times to forgive your brother. And then the Lord Jesus used this telling illustration that was such a rebuke to Peter and a rebuke to us if we don't forgive. It says in Matthew 18, Therefore the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king which would take account of his servants. And when he began to reckon, one was brought unto him which owed him ten thousand talents. Now, I've worked that out here. A talent is 750 ounces of silver. So, 7.5 million ounces of silver that man owed him. An equivalent. But for as much as he had not enough to pay, the Lord commanded him to be sold and his wife and children and all that he had and payments to be made. So the servant therefore fell down and worshipped him saying, Lord, have patience with me and I will pay you all. Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him that debt. But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants which owed him a hundred pence. Now, guess how much a hundred pence is. It's 12.5 ounces of silver. Think of 7.5 million ounces and 12.5. And he laid hands on him and took him by the throat saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellow servant fell down at his feet and besought him saying, Have patience with me and I will pay you all. All of those 12.5 ounces. And he would not. But went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when the fellow servant saw what was done, they were very sorry and came and told him to their Lord all that was done. Then his Lord, after he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt because thou desirest me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant even as I had pity on thee? And the Lord was wrath and delivered him to the tormentor. Still he should pay all that was due to him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if you from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses. What a rebuke to Peter. Peter saying to him, You know how awful it was that that man was not willing to forgive that little bit when he had been forgiven so much? Peter, think how much has been forgiven for you. If we think what God has done for us, how much he forgave and then we are not willing to forgive others. How sad. But then the question comes, Have I been forgiven? Have we got that basis for our forgiveness? Have we stood guilty before God and sought his blood to forgive, to cleanse? Have we accepted the sacrifice for our forgiveness? Have we no basis for kindness and forgiveness? Because we have not been forgiven by God. You know sometimes there is a savage enjoyment in not forgiving because you have not been forgiven. Are you perhaps hard on others because you have the bitterness of knowing that your sins have not been wiped away. Has God, for Christ's sake, forgiven you? If he has not, seek his forgiveness because then it will be so much easier to forgive others. Now first of all, we are going to look at kindness. Now the first kindness we are going to deal with is artificial kindness. In Victorian days, I am sure you have read many of the Victorian books, probably, we read of wonderful women who were so kind, genuinely kind, who reached out to the poor. We can think of names like Catherine Booth and Florence Nightingale and others. In my mom's home, there is a big book that just has many, many countless women. Some of them gave their life because they were kind, but their lives, one after the other, were reached out in kindness to reach others. But then we get a writer, we had to study quite a few books with our English education in South Africa, and one of the writers described another kind of kindness, a vicious kindness, a pompous kindness, a condescending kindness, an artificial kindness. And because he described it so minutely, he couldn't have done it if he had not come across it. Now, in one of his books, he writes about a lady called Mrs. Pardigal. Now, Mrs. Pardigal was known across London for her kindness. She came in, it says in the book, like a breath of cold air. She forced all her children to be part of her acts of kindness. In fact, she used to give them a little bit of pocket money and put it in their hand, but it never properly reached their palm. She'd take it out again and then donate it to different charities and tell the world how wonderful her children were to give to the mission field. But it was never from their hearts. And in the book we read, this one woman says, I've never seen such angry, disillusioned, unhappy children. Now, when she visited, she used to march into the homes that she used to visit. And it was these hovels, there was poverty, there was sickness, there was hunger. Obviously, many of the men there drank all their earnings up. And it describes her marching into the one house. She didn't knock, she didn't ask to enter. She was being kind. And inside the house, there was such anger. The man was so angry that she could enter his, that it wasn't his little kingdom. What she gave him is a book, an educating book. But the fact was, they couldn't read. So what did the book help? And in the book it says, the book was the, if Robinson Crusoe had one book on the island, and this was the book, he wouldn't have read that book. So it was, she just didn't read it. She didn't see that the woman was sitting there battered by her husband with a dying child. There was no compassion. Instead she gave a lecture on how they should live and what they should do. But then he describes minutely a poor, wretched, badly treated, neighboring woman who comes in. In the meantime, the child has died in the mother's arms. And she looks at the woman and she just says her name. The woman's name was Jenny. She just said, Jenny, Jenny, in such sympathy. And then the writer says, And as ugly as that woman was, she did not lack beauty because she had the beauty of kindness. Real kindness. A kindness that doesn't even say a whole lot of sentences, but can have empathy and feeling worth. Lord, am I seeking the well-done of others when I am being benevolent, kind? What is my motive behind the good actions? There in the innermost, what dost thou find? Is it a heart that is full of compassion, selfless in seeking a soul to relieve, only for others, my burning incentive? Or is there pride that can injure and grieve? Ah, blessed Savior, I tasted forgiveness from Thee whose love was beyond human kin. Let me in gratitude show real compassion. If I would lost one, to Thee ever win. It isn't hard trying to seek the lost unless it comes paired with kindness and compassion. The next kindness we get is misplaced kindness. I remember long ago I mentioned Mrs. Jeleby. I don't know if any of you know Mrs. Jeleby. She was very untidy. She didn't have time to fix all the buttons on her dress. Her dress was fixed up with safety pins. If you went into her house and you got upstairs into the children's bedrooms, you'd find dirty plates there. There wasn't time to get everything and organize her household and see that everybody was clean and well-dressed. But she was busy with a big project. It was somewhere in Africa called Boria Bula Gar. And her whole attention, all her kindness, all her compassion was thrown into this project. And she didn't see the needs right before her. When she was in the office, the papers were there, the letters that she was replying to and the people that she was trying to get involved in her project. The children, the one child fell down the stairs. She said, oh please, stop that noise. There wasn't a mother running out with compassion. She was so busy with a mission that she lost sight of her real mission. And her kindness did not extend beyond the home. Our first area of kindness is your own brothers and sisters, your parents, your children. That's where God calls us to, initially. And then he helps us to reach out to others. Have we got kindness that is misplaced kindness? We're reaching out there and we're forgetting the needs right here. Now we also get false kindness. We all remember the prophet. Remember that prophet, the young prophet that came and spoke to the king and he told the king, the king got a withered hand as he tried to stop him telling what God would bring upon the nation. And then there was the old prophet who could have heard how God had used the young prophet. And so he invited him to do something that God had forbidden the young prophet to do. He invited him to his home and he asked him to eat and drink and to come that way. But the young prophet says, no, but God has expressly told me I may not do this. But the old prophet said, no, I've had a word from the Lord and in kindness I'm going to help you. And he led him to fall from grace, to disobey God, and eventually that young prophet was killed by a lion. False kindness tries to get others to move from that which God, they feel, is God's will for them. We must be careful that jealousy cannot influence us to try and drag others down in the name of kindness. What is our motive when we are kind to others? Are we truly kind? Abram, when he asked Sarah to be kind enough to him to lie to Abimelech and pretend that she was his sister, he was not kind in asking Sarah that and she was not kind in saying yes to Abram. She should have said, Abram, my husband, it would not be kind to lie to God. Can't we trust God? You see, that is false kindness. It is false kindness to do wrong, to think that in doing wrong we can gain rights. We have to be true to God in our kindness. And we must not cause others to stumble. But there can also be undiscerning unkindness. What do I mean? We don't mean to be unkind, but we are unkind. I was sitting in a meeting. It was a ladies' meeting. All the ladies in this meeting were called together and the lady was going to talk about dress. And she gave a whole lecture on how we should dress and be modest and all those wonderful things that God requires of us. But then she went into a bit more detail. Now, in the group of ladies, young ladies that sat there was a very beautiful, very plump girl. She was very plump and very beautiful. She had long blonde hair, rosy cheeks. And this lady then spoke about particulars of dress. Now, this girl was very good with needlework. And she used to love to do little tucks and embroidery. And she used to make the most beautiful dresses for herself, but with lots of tiny little details on. And I used to think it's beautiful. It really made her look lovely. But this lady said, now I want to give you an example that if you are a bit overweight, you must try and use simple lines to try and reduce what you look like. So, for instance, and she pointed to this girl and she said to her, you put a lot of detail on your dress and it draws attention to your figure and I do not think that is wise. I looked at the girl and she blushed and she was devastated. The lady did so much harm by the words that she said and I didn't even agree with the lady. I thought she looked beautiful as she was. But it's so easy, a quick word, a thought, was the lady perhaps airing her own views and all the knowledge that she had gained in her needlework classes or whatever. But we can so unwittingly be unkind, so we have to be very careful how we speak and what we say and what damage can be done with thoughtless words. Then, of course, we get discerning kindness. I think last year there was Mrs. Spurgeon's book that Mrs. Freeborn listed. It was so interesting to read and after the Saturday afternoon I started to quickly skim it. It's always so interesting to read about Spurgeon and his wife, but this was very interesting to read the little details of her life. Now she had discerning kindness. She realized that the ministers in Britain didn't have enough money to buy and acquire books and she knew that if they had lots of good books, autobiographies, biographies, it would be able to enrich their ministries. So what did she do? She started a book club and books were sent to her and then she sent these books out in parcels to the young ministers and those books helped to enrich their ministry. It was discerning kindness. It's essential not only to be kind in a general way but to ask God for discernment in our kindness because discerning kindness brings brightness, colour, good influence on lives. I was at a convention recently in Pennington, Italy. It was a ladies' convention. We had the normal meetings but then Saturday afternoon we had a fun afternoon and we dealt with the subject of loneliness and we had the ladies do drawings and all sorts of things but we also asked them to break up into groups and act out loneliness something to do with loneliness as a little group and it was very interesting to see how they portrayed it very touching. But the one little group portrayed an old lady in an old age home sitting at the window praying for somebody to come and visit her. In fact, she prayed and we were all in tears listening to her because she did it so realistically. She said, Lord, nobody's come to see me for three months. I'm so lonely. Just please send someone. And then the other part of the group they acted out these young mothers with the children and interaction and having coffee and just fellowshipping and then suddenly one of them said, Do you know when last have we gone to visit that old lady? And then they of course go and visit her and her joy at seeing them and God answering her prayer and being visited. But it's just a little thought. Sometimes a little bunch of flowers to an elderly person can mean more than words. A little SMS I think you call it a scripted message on your phone. I'm praying for you. I'm thinking of you. A time over a cup of tea with an old person that wants to share their heart and there's nobody that's got the time to listen. Aunt Ruth visited my great aunt and my mom said it was so interesting. She didn't ask What must I do now? What would you like me to do now? Whatever. She just had that discerning eye to just quietly help behind the scenes which was of such value without making a show of it. We should ask God for discerning kindness whether it's our brothers and sisters parents, grandparents other people out there who are lonely and need a touch of kindness. Unrewarded kindness. Kindness is not always rewarded. It's often not rewarded. But we must not expect our reward here. If we expect our reward for kindness here we're going to stop being kind but we're not going to get it. My granny always quoted Luke 17 verse 10 We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which is our duty to do. If we are only seeking to be kind to please Him in gratitude for what He did for us it will become involuntary to be kind. So little sister don't be discouraged when your brother snubs you after you've been kind to him. Or people don't see the things that you do the little hidden things that you do because there are other eyes that are watching you kind eyes grateful eyes from Heaven itself that see your acts of kindness. We must not expect earthly reward. I think my mum will forgive me for telling you the story when I was little she'd gone to town and she came back very late she usually came back rather late from town it was hours drive and I was so excited about her coming that I laid the table got the meal ready I was very little still probably put flowers on the table and did a whole lot of things and I stood outside and I couldn't wait for her to arrive to see all that I'd done. And then there was one thing I did not do you had to draw the curtains at night because the cars used to go past and everybody could see into our house so whatever you did in the house you could see from the road especially if the lights are on and my mother came in and she saw that the curtains were not drawn. So my mum said Jennifer you didn't draw the curtains and when she said Jennifer it was usually when I did something wrong and Jenny when I was fine you didn't draw the curtains you know my heart sank she didn't see all the other things she just saw the one thing that I hadn't done just at that moment and it was a good lesson that we are not to expect our well dones here but to expect it to know that other eyes see and it was a good lesson to know to remember to draw the curtains. Now we can have unintentional unkindness you know you preps don't do that but in our schools when you choose two teens even at Christian camps what they usually do is they get a strong two strong young people and they ask them to choose teens and so they choose and choose and it gets less and less the agony of a child that gets to the end of the choosing there's two left there's one left oh lord please help that I'm not the last one that I'm the unwanted one saying oh there's one over well let's put you in that teen the hurt it's just unintentional unkindness I think it would be far better to say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or at all the odd numbers in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 but all the even numbers that would be a kinder way of doing it I remember as a little girl once sitting in the kitchen and somebody ran in and called everybody by name to go on an outing and just it was unintentional but my name was sit and they all ran out and my mom just looked at my face as a child I had not been called just unintentional but it hurts we're dealing with precious lives and we have to be so careful to be kind in our handling I read an autobiography recently of a man who was giving his life story and he has died since then but it was so sad to read all the hurts of his childhood were so real to him that close to his death he could still give every detail of the neglect of the words that were spoken to him of the hurt of the things he suffered they were all still there now the blood washes it away and we're supposed to cleanse our conscience from dead works even the hurts but for him they were still very real and what made me very sad was to think of what hurts can do to a child that even as an adult those hurts are still so very real and his God can give them victory I was in a home where there was a family a lovely family and one of the children was a delightful shy little girl she had gone to school and she came back again I was actually taking care of the children and she said to me oh we had such an exciting thing that happened at school today so we said well what happened she said you know the teacher put a cardboard post box in the corner of the class and she said all of us could write a letter to somebody else in the class and she said and so we all wrote letters and the letters were read out and we said oh that's wonderful and after a little break she said now there were two children who didn't get a letter from anybody else and then after a little break she said with a smile I was one of those two I felt so sorry for her now I think it would have been better if the teacher had just given everybody a name to write to so it's not intentional but we have to be careful that unintentionally we can be unkind to others thoughtless words don't be a fool I give up on you why can't you be like it's so easy to say those words especially when you're very busy or things are very demanding I found I was helping some children with essays and the one essay title given by the school was brother for sale now sometimes our reactions and our words are almost as if we're saying brother for sale sister for sale please take them off my hands or my parents we have to be very careful what we do with our tongues what is my tongue sent forth today kindness that smooths another's way was it a harsh or biting word or was my tongue with pity stirred now we can also be handicapped with unkindness that we have experienced it's sometimes possible that because we have been hurt we want to hurt others it's a cycle or because we have had to suffer things we want others to suffer the same things there was young people on a beach at Pennington many years ago and there was a missionary lady there and she said to the young people because I had to wear black stockings on the beach you shall also wear imagine the water and the sand and playing games with the children so there is a thought that sometimes when we have had to do things we want others to go through the same there was such a blessing at a recent camp an Indian lady had suffered the most horrific things from the age of 13 when she gave a testimony it was unbelievable what she had gone through as a young girl and grown up but you know what is so wonderful is that she had so much joy she had a heart that reached out to others that was so kind those things that she went through she didn't allow to influence her in her reactions and in her reaching out to others so we must be careful that we are not handicapped by unkindness that we may have experienced in our life now the next thing is tender hearted the word tender hearted now tenderness goes beyond being kind it is easier to be kind than to be tender hearted you know tender hearted if you have a little plant and you tenderly nurture it you have to be so careful that nothing bends it that there isn't too much heat there isn't too much frost or whatever you tenderly nurture it and in the same way God wants us to tenderly nurture our brothers and our sisters in the Christian home and in our community tender compassion like a loving mother with a child now I think there is a wonderful verse in the Bible in Genesis 29 verse 17 first of all we get a description of Rachel as the beautiful one the preferred one and then we find out in the scripture that Leah was not beautiful but listen to this Leah was tender eyed but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured Leah was tender eyed Leah was not beautiful her sister was the one for beauty cherished loved, preferred whom Jacob's heart had won but Leah had a tender eye we know it from God's word despite her trials rejection hurt her heart with pity stirred it's a precious thing to be tender Leah was not beautiful she was not well favoured but she had something that could defy time she had tenderness and I think if we put the two in the scale the tenderness might have been the right side of the scale it would have lasted longer it had more keeping power because beauty goes but if we retain our tenderness it is very precious and it makes life easier for those around us there was a very thin, delightful, eccentric missionary called Mrs. Gander she's still living but used to be in the Congo as a missionary and she was telling me a little bit of her life story she said that her mother died there was quite a big family and her mother died when they were young and she said her father was a pioneer she said he was the kind of man that would break down and make paths in the forest to reach the lost and he was not of a nurturing spirit that is how God made him but she said, you know in our family we would have been lost if we didn't have a brother who was so tender and he took our mother's place and he nurtured us as a family and she said we didn't lose anything by having such a brother and imagine what a husband he later was and father but he filled that gap he was tender in his doings being kind to one another tender part of tender do we go beyond kindness now the next part says forbearing one another now forbearing sounds difficult doesn't it because it has the word bear in it and it sounds as if we have to bear what is difficult we have to bear things that we do not like there are things that we have to endure we have to remember that love covers a multitude of sins now I didn't say a multitude of faults I think faults will be easier to bear in others but it is a multitude of sins that's what love is somebody was at bible college and at bible college another student ran to her and said wait, wait, wait I've got news to tell you so she said well what news she thought something wonderful had happened but you know what news the girl came to say some young couple had fallen into sin and the other student said she couldn't believe it how could she be excited to expose and that couple repented it was something that happened they repented they were immediately married and in fact they loved the Lord I know them to this day many, many, many years down the line but love would have covered their sin it need never have been exposed it need never have become public knowledge so we have to be very careful there was a boy that said to me my mother beareth all things she believeth all things she hopeth all things she endureth all things and he said I cannot thank God enough for her so that's quite something to say now this very Indian lady I told you of she lives in a two bedroom little house and she has allowed her unsaved son and unsaved wife that are alcoholics to stay with her in the house as she tries to reach them with a child and she has the one bedroom but now her daughter has also asked to come and stay with her now the daughter also married an alcoholic and she had told her not to marry the man she had strictly told her not to marry the man but the daughter then tried to take her life so the mother had stepped back and she had married him and they had a handicapped child and so she has asked to come and live with this Indian lady as well and the Indian lady turned to me at the camp and she said to me how can I say no she said how can I tell others about the love of God if I do not extend love to those that God calls me to be kind to and so it might have happened by now it will soon happen that in her home she is going to sleep in the lounge that all these unsaved anti-God people are going to be in the home with them but it is her mission field and she is going to try and reach them and she is going to be forbearing forbearing in the true sense of the word and we pray that God will give her the grace that she needs but how can I be kind how can I be forbearing how can I be kind it is not natural some people are born with a nature that is slightly more kindly but it is not natural to fallen man to be kind if you can help in the creche or a mother's room or even if you are little brothers and sisters you will find that it is not natural to be kind I mean how many times have you not said Johnny please you have played with this toy for a long time please share it why don't you give something share that or play with somebody else don't pinch don't kick don't do this don't do that so that is we are fallen man fallen woman kind and we need supernatural grace to be kind to be tender to be forbearing and therefore we need to be fully surrendered to God that He can work His own kindness through us that is why it says in Romans we have to be fully surrendered our whole body given over to God so that we could be what He wants us to be in this year a dear prayer warrior a very dainty little lady died from emphysema and many tragic things that happened in her life but I spoke to another missionary lady and she said to me do you know the amazing thing is that she stayed sweet throughout all that came across her path she was kind tender hearted forgiving what others would have found very difficult to forgive and then another lady said to me you know when she entered the portals of heaven there was a well done she retained her sweetness we need to be kind with our tongue we need to be kind with our hands our feet where they go that old age home the people that are lonely we need to be kind in sympathy in empathy you know empathy goes beyond sympathy empathy puts yourself in another person's shoes there's a feeling with that's part of that word empathy that is very precious we need to be tender we need to be loving we need to be forgiving and we need to be forbearing why? because God for Christ's sake has forgiven us love your enemies bless them that curse you even if they be in your own household do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despisefully use you and persecute you be kind to one another tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you unkind I've been to parents brother, sister in word and deed I have hurt them every day so many things that could have eased their burdens I've left undone upon my selfish way our Lord I did not heed thy earnest bidding intendedness to love forgive, be kind if I neglect thy clear and strict injunction I too, thy mercy will be cruelly blind for thou didst pay for my soul the full ransom with thy own blood the sacrifice was made thy body bruised and scourged and broken for me upon the cross thy form was laid can I who humbly sought thy great forgiveness keep back my own from those who anger me can I who tasted thy compassion towards a brother sister hardened being