Putting On Christ

Make Me Have Kindness and Goodness

Two characteristics that God calls for us to adopt to be pleasing in His sight are kindness and goodness. Immediately we may think that these words are simply redundant.

• Kindness is defined by Thayer as “moral goodness, integrity.”
• Goodness is defined by Thayer as “uprightness of heart and life.”

We can see that the definitions of these two words are fairly similar.

In studying these characteristics, I thought Jerry Bridges related these two words together well:

• “Kindness is a sincere desire for the happiness of others; goodness is the activity calculated to advance that happiness.”
• Therefore, kindness is about having the desire for good things to happen to others.
• Goodness is doing activities to ensure that those good things do happen to others.
• Kindness requires an awareness of others and the thoughtfulness to want to bring goodness to their lives.

Consider two reasons why we need to reflect these characteristics of kindness and goodness.

First, we see these very characteristics in Jesus…