Ephesians 4:32 calls us to a life that pushes directly against our instincts: to be kind when others are harsh, tender when it would be easier to be guarded, and forgiving when our hurt feels justified. This is not a call to be weak or passive; it is a call to reflect the very heart of God in the way we treat one another. The standard is not our mood, our personality, or what others “deserve,” but what we ourselves have received in Christ. Today is an invitation to let the kindness of God reshape how we speak, how we respond, and how we remember the wrongs done against us.

Kindness That Disarms

“Be kind and tenderhearted to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). Kindness in Scripture is never just “being nice.” It is a Spirit-empowered choice to actively do good to others, even when it costs us something. God’s own kindness is what drew us to repentance: “Do you disregard the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4). When we show kindness, especially to those who expect our irritation, we are putting the character of God on display.

Think of how Jesus moved toward people: the leper, the tax collector, the woman caught in sin. His words could be firm, but they were never cruel. His tone could be direct, but never demeaning. “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). That “as I have loved you” is the measure of our kindness. Today, who expects your coldness but needs your warmth? Whose guard might be lowered—not by winning an argument—but by the surprising gentleness of your response?

Tender Hearts in a Hard World

We live in a culture that equates hardness with strength and tenderness with weakness. But Scripture calls us to the opposite: “Finally, all of you, be like-minded and sympathetic, love as brothers, be tenderhearted and humble” (1 Peter 3:8). A tender heart is not a thin skin; it is a responsive, compassionate heart that feels with others and is easily moved by the needs and sorrows around it. Hardness protects our pride; tenderness protects our love.

God Himself has dealt with us this way: “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy” (Titus 3:4–5). He saw our rebellion and responded with compassion, not contempt. The more we contemplate His mercy toward us, the more our own hearts are softened toward others. Ask Him to make you sensitive again—quick to listen, slow to take offense, ready to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15). In a hard world, a soft heart is a miracle of grace.

Forgiveness That Remembers the Cross

Forgiveness is where kindness and tenderness are tested most deeply. Ephesians 4:32 ends by rooting our forgiveness in the gospel: “forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you”. We are not asked to forgive because sin is small, but because the cross is big. “Bear with one another and forgive any complaint you may have against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). Every time we choose to forgive, we are consciously deciding to let Christ’s payment for sin be enough.

This does not mean pretending evil was good or making reconciliation possible where there is no repentance or safety. It does mean refusing to nurse bitterness, to replay the offense, or to demand that others pay a debt Christ has already paid. Jesus warned, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14). When forgiveness feels impossible, go back to the foot of the cross. Remember how much you have been forgiven, and ask the Lord to extend that same mercy through you, even when your feelings lag behind your obedience.

Lord Jesus, thank You for Your kindness and the forgiveness I have received at the cross. Today, help me walk in Your gentleness—showing kindness, keeping a tender heart, and choosing to forgive as You have forgiven me.

THE MAN WHO IS SERIOUSLY CONVINCED that he deserves to go to hell is not likely to go there, while the man who believes that he is worthy of heaven will certainly never enter that blessed place.

I use the word "seriously" to accent true conviction and to distinguish it from mere nominal belief.

It is possible to go through life believing that we believe, while actually having no conviction more vital than a conventional creed inherited from our ancestors or picked up from the general religious notions current in our social circle. If this creed requires that we admit our own depravity we do so and feel proud of our fidelity to the Christian faith. But from the way we love, praise and pamper ourselves it is plain enough that we do not consider ourselves worthy of damnation.

A revealing proof of this is seen in the squeamish way religious writers use words. An amusing example is found in a cautious editorial change made in the song "The Comforter Has Come." One stanza reads:

"O boundless love divine!

How shall this tongue of mine,

To wondering mortals tell

The matchless grace divine -

That I, a child of hell,

Should in His image shine!"

That is how Dr. Bottome felt it and that is how he wrote it; and the man who has seen the holiness of God and the pollution of his own heart will sing it as it was written, for his whole inner life will respond to the experience. Even if he cannot find chapter and verse to brand hint a child of hell, Ins heart indicts him and he eagerly accuses himself before God as fit only for perdition. This is to experience something profounder than theology, more painfully intimate than creed, and while bitter and harsh it is true to the man's Spirit illuminated view of himself. In so confessing, the enlightened heart is being faithful to the terrible fact while it is singing its own condemnation. This I believe is greatly pleasing to God.

It is, I repeat, amusing if somewhat distressing to come upon an editorial change in this song, which was made obviously in the interest of correct theology, but is once removed from reality and twice removed from true moral feeling. In one hymnal it is made to read,

"That I a child of SIN

Should in His image shine!"

The fastidious song cobbler who made that alteration simply could not think of himself as ever having been a "child of hell." A finicky choice of words sometimes tells us more about a man than the man knows about himself.

This one instance, if isolated in Christian literature, ought not be too significant, but when this kind of thing occurs everywhere as thick as dandelions in a meadow it becomes highly significant indeed. The mincing religious prudery heard in the average pulpit is all a part of this same thing-- art unwillingness to admit the depths of our inner depravity. We do not actually assent to God's judgement of us except as we hold it as a superficial creed. When the pressure is on we back out. A child of sin? Maybe. A child of hell? No.

Our Lord -told of two men who appeared before God in prayer, a Pharisee who recited his virtues and a publican who beat on his breast and pleaded for mercy. The first was rejected, the other justified.

We manage to live with that story in some degree of comfort only by keeping it at full arm's length and never permitting it to catch hold of our conscience. These two men are long ago dead and their story has become it little religious classic. We are different, and how can anything so remote apply to us? So we reason on a level only slightly above our unconscious, and draw what comfort we can from the vagueness and remoteness of it all.

But why should we not face up to it? The truth is that this happened not a long while ago, but yesterday, this morning; not far-away, but here where some of us last knelt to pray. These two men are not dead, but alive, and are found in the local church, at the missionary convention and the deeper life conference here, now, today.

Every man lives at last by his secret philosophy as an airplane flies on its electric beam. It is the profound conviction that we are wholly unworthy of future blessedness, that, we are indeed by nature fitted only for destruction, that leads to true repentance. The man who inwardly believes that lie is too good to perish will certainly perish unless he experiences a radical change of heart about himself.

The poor quality of Christian that grows out of our modern evangelistic meeting may be accounted for by the absence of real repentance accompanying the initial spiritual experience of the converts. And the absence of repentance is the result of an inadequate view of sin and sinfulness held by those who present themselves in the inquiry room.

"No fears, no grace," said Bunyan. "Though there is not always grace where there is fear of hell, yet, to be sure, there is no grace where there is no fear of God." And again, "I care not at all for that profession which begins not in heaviness of mind .... For the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and they that lack the beginning have neither middle nor end."

And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever. - Isaiah 32:17

"Thy righteousness is like the great mountains." Like these, its roots are fast and stable; like these, it stands firm for ever; like these, its summits touch the fleeting clouds of human circumstance; like these, it is a shelter and a refuge, inaccessible in its steepest peaks, but affording many a cleft in its rocks where a man may hide and be safe. But, unlike these, it knew no beginning and shall know no end. Emblems of permanence as they are, though Olivet looks down on Jerusalem as it did when Melchizedek was its king, and Tabor and Hermon stand as they did before human lips had named them, they are wearing away by winter storms and summer heats. But, as Isaiah has taught us, when the earth is old, Gods might and mercy are young; for "the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from thee." " The earth shall wax old like a garment, but My righteousness shall not be abolished." It is "more stable than the mountains, and firmer than the firmest things upon earth."

Here towers Vesuvius; there at its feet lie the waters of the bay. So the righteousness’s springs up like some great cliff, rising sheer from the water’s edge, while its feet are laved by the "sea of glass mingled with fire " - the Divine judgments, unfathomable and shoreless. The mountains and the sea are the two grandest things in nature, and in their combination sublime; the one the home of calm and silence, the other in perpetual motion. But the mountain’s roots are deeper than the depths of the sea; and though the judgments are a mighty deep, the righteousness is deeper, and is the bed of that ocean.

The metaphor, of course, implies obscurity, but what sort of obscurity? The obscurity of the sea. And what sort of obscurity is that? Not that which comes from mud, or anything added; that which comes from depth. As far as a man can see down into its blue-green depths, they are clear and translucent; but where the light fails and the eye fails, there comes what we call obscurity. The sea is clear, but our sight is limited.

And so there is no arbitrary obscurity in God’s dealings, and we know as much about them as it is possible for us to know; but we cannot see to the bottom. A man on the cliff can see much deeper down in the ocean than a man on the bank. The further you climb, the further you will see down into the "sea of glass mingled with fire" that lies placid before God’s throne. Let us remember that it is a hazardous thing to judge of a picture before it is finished, of a building before the scaffolding is pulled down; and it is a hazardous thing for us to say about any deed or any revealed truth that it is inconsistent with the Divine character. Wait a bit; wait a bit! " Thy judgments are a great deep." The deep will be drained off one day, and you will see the bottom of it.