Parker Inspirations

Ephesians 4:32 “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

I thought of this verse as I thought about yesterday’s writing about communication. My thought was in three parts. First was on being kind one to another. If we are kind then others will be kind in return. However, I think so many times we forget to be kind. We look at a situation and react instead of thinking first. If we think first, we would be more kind in our responds. We also forget that we are all sinners. As we think about what the situation is, we might ask the question “What is going on in their life?” We do not know every detail of someone’s life to understand why they said or did what they did.

If someone seems to always be in a certain mood, there is the question of our own tenderness toward them to help them be more of what the Lord wants for their life. The second part of the verse is to be tenderhearted. So many times we make assumptions of people that has no facts to back up our assumption. We need to pray and ask the Lord to help us be more tenderhearted so we can help someone. Talking about how they are and never talking to them is not fair to them. Just maybe you are the key to help them to grow beyond where they are. Kindness and being tenderhearted go hand in hand. When we put these two together, we will go to the third part a lot easier.

The third part of that verse is forgiveness. But this forgiveness is greater than we imagine because the Bible compares it to the forgiveness that the Lord gives us because of Christ. We have been forgiven of everything, yet we are not always forgiving of someone who did us wrong. What someone does to us is so minor compared to what we have been forgiven of.