Be Kind

[Sue J Love]

We do not have to agree,
Nor must we see eye to eye,
But polite, that we can be
If we want to, if we try.

Nastiness is immature.
Slandering, it has no place.
Insults, they are like manure
Being slapped onto one’s face.

Why must you dig in the dirt
Just to try to make a point?
Can’t you find a kinder way,
Or must you be out of joint?

Speak the truth, but speak in love.
Don’t put on your boxing gloves.
We can speak without a fight
If we learn to speak it right.

This not saying compromise.
This not saying to back down.
This just saying, be mature,
Learn to differ, not put-down.

Being nasty goes nowhere.
Being spiteful makes no sense.
Being hateful only hurts
Others who you may resent.

Truth is kind, though, tell it well.
Speak the truth and not the lies.
Tell how we must now repent,
And on Christ we must rely.

Love does not mean alter truth,
Pacify the caught in sin.
Tell how we must obey God,
And our sins we must relent.

An Original Work / April 28, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

 

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Thank you, @Sue J Love.

(1Co 13:1) If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
(1Co 13:2) And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
(1Co 13:3) If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
(1Co 13:4) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
(1Co 13:5) or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
(1Co 13:6) it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
(1Co 13:7) Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
(1Co 13:8) Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
(1Co 13:9) For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
(1Co 13:10) but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
(1Co 13:11) When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
(1Co 13:12) For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
(1Co 13:13) So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
(ESV)

In Christ Jesus
Chris

 

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Hello @Sue J Love,

I have a relative who can only speak truth (as she sees it) and has little ability to understand when it is wiser to remain silent, to avoid causing hurt or offence. If she has an opinion, she feels she has the right to express it, and does. Those of us who understand her, let it go unremarked, and because she is kind and loving by nature overlook it and move on, but to those for whom the opinion expressed has a personal application, it comes with a barb, that sticks and irritates.

Yet, sometimes a barb or, 'thorn in the flesh,' is necessary to bring someone to repentance, too, isn't it? To wake them up from the complacency that has cloaked their true condition for years, and bring them to Christ, as one who recognises their need of a Saviour. Therefore it proves to be a kindness, to have expressed a truth that is unpalatable, when such a result is the outcome.

Thank you
In Christ Jesus
Chris