Love Kindness

As we begin this New Year, there are so many things that are heavy on my heart. But perhaps the request that I most often pray is, Jesus, show us — your church — how to love this broken world closer to You. With a culture that is rapidly changing and a morale that is straying from God’s biblical guidelines, how do we reach out to those whose beliefs are so different from ours? I love what my friend Barry Corey, president of Biola University, says about this in his new book, Love Kindness:

“… Kindness calls me to a deeper way of seeing people, especially those who are ‘the other,’ the ones who do not fit into my ‘good, better, best’ categories. The way of kindness calls me to see how God makes sense of the messy and unattractive to fulfill his redemptive work. The way of kindness calls me to do likewise.”

Christian, we CAN be kind, gentle and respectful to those whose beliefs are different while still holding on to our faith in Christ and biblical worldview (1 Peter 3:15). It’s the type of witness Jesus is calling us to be. As 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, “We are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us.” So join me in sharing the hope of Jesus to those we encounter this 2016!