Pursue Holiness: Kindness and Goodness

I am fascinated at the way the Bible is woven together by common themes and imagery throughout its pages. For instance, from the beginning, we are given concrete examples of what God deems ‘good’. At the end of each day of Creation, God looks upon what He has spoken into existence and calls it tov, or ‘good’ (Genesis 1).¹ On the seventh day, He gazes at humanity and calls us ‘very good’ (v.31), setting us apart from the rest of Creation because we have been made in His image (v.27). We are good because He is good.

We watch the thread of ‘good’ zigzag through the Bible, coming across the moment God reveals what His inner-wiring is like, describing Himself as “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth (or faithfulness)” (Exodus 34:6 NASB). Isaiah carries on this imagery by quoting God as saying that despite Israel’s disobedience, He will “bring them back” to Himself with “everlasting kindness” (54:8). The Psalmist consistently cries out to God with praises – because He is ‘good’ (ie: Psalm 34:8, 100:5, 119:68). Jesus tells us that only God is good (Mark 10:18). And Paul reminds the Church of God’s kindness and the way it makes room for all believers at the table of God (ie: Titus 3:4-5; Romans 2:4).

Then, we step back to look at the tapestry God is creating, and we see the interwoven nature of what we call ‘kindness’ and ‘goodness’; they’re twisted together like a single strand of thread. Inseparable. And that’s because the early Greek translators of the Bible intentionally carried over the Hebrew notion of tov by employing “both khrestotes (“kindness”) and agathone (“goodness”)”, which, together, “describe what is good, beautiful, right-functioning, and just.”² 

As a result of this double-stranded thread, we really can’t consider kindness without goodness, and vice-versa, because together they offer something to our spiritual growth and lives that would leave us incomplete if either were missing. In fact, without kindness and goodness functioning in us, we would not look like Jesus at all. 

Christ-like Kindness

Years ago at a spiritual retreat, a prayerful woman had heard from the Spirit a word for me: ‘kindness’. Specifically the spiritual fruit of kindness. And while I was touched to think I had been seen as kind, deep down that thought puffed me up a bit and made me feel like I’d been given a prize for being nice. 

Well, it turns out God was trying to speak over me and into me something I was not, and am not yet fully. Kindness is not the same as being nice.³ Kindness flows out of us because Jesus lives in us – not because we try harder to be nice to everyone we meet. Kindness is activity that, at its core, is ‘good’, and it originates from the love we’ve received from the Father. 

“Underneath such love is the inward disposition of patience and the outward bearing of kindness.” 

JD Walt⁴ 

Kindness motivates us to do ‘good’ for people who wouldn’t necessarily be deemed as worthy or worth the effort. Those who live with the fruit of kindness don’t even expect reciprocity or hope for accolades. In fact, they seek to point others to Jesus, not themselves. 

Just as I took the word, ‘kindness’, as a compliment, as a reflection of my own character or virtue, it’s easy for believers to learn about the Fruit of the Spirit and make it about ourselves. In fact, I’ve always heard the nine fruit described as Jesus’ character, traits that we’re meant to have in common with Him. This is not a wrong understanding of the Fruit of the Spirit, but it can be misapplied when we make ‘kindness’ about achievement or reputation.⁴ 

Growing in our faith and bearing this spiritual fruit requires us to be intentional in developing an abiding life and putting into practice rhythms that keep us aligned with Christ, but in the end the Spirit’s fruit in us is about the people around us. In fact, those who walk this life with the Spirit, ooze the fruit of Jesus’ character: 

“Self is no longer a category of reference for them; only others. They are neither self-deprecating or self-abnegating or even self-conscious. They have so abandoned themselves to Jesus, their lives are referenced around others.”

JD Walt⁴ 

When I think of ‘kindness’ this way, I recognize in myself the capacity and tendency to make kindness about me and the way it makes me feel, like some sideways stroke of my ego. But when this self-focused brand of ‘kindness’, which is really just nice-ness, bumps up against conflict or confrontation, it crumbles without Christ’s truth to stand on; it compromises because of its lack of conviction. ‘Nice’ can’t hang with ‘kindness’ because it’s not really not who Jesus is at all. ‘Nice-ness’ is self-generated and self-serving; ‘kindness’ is Spirit-sourced and outward focused.

Friends, we are the branches on Christ’s vine – branches full of love that flows up from the roots and out to the fruit growing in us, spiritual fruit that is heavy-laden with love, especially the fruit of kindness. Paul defines God’s agape love as patient and “kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4). So, to grow in Christ’s kindness, we surrender to the work of love in our lives, and we begin to live for the flourishing of others.⁴ 

The God-ness of Goodness

I once read that the spiritual fruit of goodness can be thought of as ‘God-ness’ in order to help us redeem it from the world’s idea, or even the Church’s idea, of ‘being good’. 

Our attempts at ‘being good’ actually have deep roots in self-centered motivation because at the heart of such gestures and behaviors lies the desire to please others, take credit, or get something in return. I know, because the Lord has been showing me for years how ‘being good’ is a far cry from His goodness. There’s a difference between teenage-Shelley following all the rules in order to avoid disappointing people and maturing-Shelley obeying the Spirit’s promptings to refrain from some behaviors because of her love for God. 

Over the last few decades, I’ve heard and read stories of so many women who have grown up in the Church hearing that they need to be ‘nice girls’ or ‘good, godly women’, thus believing the message “that serving God means earning God’s love and sacrificing oneself to meet the needs of others.”⁵ Or, believing that we can enter into some cosmic cause-and-effect ‘game’ where our good behavior and good choices result in happiness or ‘goodness’ in our lives.⁶ Then shame sets when our lives don’t feel happy or look ‘good’. We start believing, I didn’t do enough. I’m not good enough. And we end up feeling betrayed by the great Chess King in the sky who didn’t fulfill His part of the deal… I was ‘good’, so where’s all the good stuff? Why all this pain? 

This is when we have to pause and recognize that sometimes we get ‘good’ all wrong.

To get the best picture of what God calls ‘good’ and how He is all ‘goodness’, we recall that we have to go back to Scripture – the place of God’s story and self-revelation. We pick up that thread of ‘goodness’ weaving itself in and out of God’s Word; we not only see “God’s goodness revealed in creation (Genesis 1),” but also “in covenant faithfulness (Psalm 23:6), and climactically in the incarnation (Acts 10:38).”⁷ We see God as inherently ‘good’, meaning He isn’t just a good God; ‘good’ is who He is. So as we read His story and get to know Him for who He actually is, rather than what we have assumed or been taught, we realize His goodness reveals His “uprightness of heart and life.”⁸ He lives out what He is in His deepest self. His God-ness.

The Greek word for ‘goodness’, agathosune, is found only in the Bible, suggesting that its meaning was absent in the language of the first century.⁶ I like to think this implies that Christ and His followers ushered in this ‘new’ way of living into the world, so they had to come up with a word for it. 

And this word, ‘goodness’, “captures the active outworking of divine character in redeemed humanity,” marking believers as a visible sign of God’s goodness.⁷ So, here we are again, seeing ‘character development’ as part of our sanctification journey. As ‘redeemed humanity’ we are meant to have God’s goodness in us. However, the risk with ‘goodness’, perhaps more than any other fruit, is our inherent nature to twist God’s goodness for our manufactured, superficial version.  

Understanding this helps us grasp that the goodness we seek and that God desires to grow in us, does not come from our efforts to ‘be good’. Rather, God imparts His goodness to His children by way of His Spirit, who “internalizes and reproduces God’s goodness” within us.⁷ In other words, being ‘good’ or doing ‘good’ is not about us trying harder or denying ourselves any actual goodness or rest or joy in our exhausting pursuit of proving ourselves or earning favor. It’s Holy Spirit working in us, transforming us from the inside-out, until we are sourced and motivated by a self-forgetting goodness that then flows out of us through good acts for the benefit of others. And for God’s glory. 

But here’s where the rubber meets the road. God’s goodness in us is not simply a virtue; it’s not just the work that we do in the world. It is these things, but true God-ness, faces injustice head-on. Goodness confronts sin; it stands firm on Truth in the face of challenge or compromise. And if we need evidence of such goodness, we look no further than Jesus. He healed and delivered and taught – all with goodness. But if He hadn’t faced the hypocrisy of the Temple leaders, He wouldn’t have been good. If He hadn’t called people to sin no more, He wouldn’t have completed the work of God’s goodness in the world. 

So, let’s pick-up the two threads of kindness and goodness and see how they work together and strengthen each other. 

If we have kindness without God’s goodness, we lack backbone, a moral compass, conviction, and truth; we become permissive, weak, or tolerant of sin. Kindness all by itself leads us to live by sentimentality, seeking to appease rather than to bring ‘goodness’ into the world. 

But then, goodness without kindness quickly devolves into lives that are legalistic, harsh, and heartless. All the ‘good’ we set out to be and do actually lacks grace and love. It’s the ‘being good’ for all the wrong reasons.

In my natural self, I’ve always, always, always tried to be the nice, good girl, offering smiles as if the smile itself would somehow tell people I’m a Jesus-follower and, therefore, count as evangelism. I’ve mostly been a rule-follower; however, it wasn’t out of some holy motivation but as a way to stay in good graces or to help keep the peace or (most alarmingly) to earn love. Without much thought, I have lived as though being kind and good were the goals but from a posture of what JD Walt describes as ‘believing and behaving’.⁹ 

When actually, God calls us to be like Him. And the only way to do that is to ‘behold and become’.⁹ Eyes fixed on the Father. Minds joined with Jesus. Hearts led by Holy Spirit, beholding our Triune God in such a way that we are slowly transformed by His presence in us, and we become what we have pursued. 

Father God, this feels like a lot! Recognizing all the ways we have misjudged, misunderstood, and misappropriated your goodness and kindness brings on all sorts of thoughts and feelings. But we remember that in Christ there is no condemnation. We recall that in the Spirit, there is grace and freedom. So we kneel before You with hearts that desire to repent, to confess the motivations that have moved us to live as nice girls and good women. We lay down our desires to earn, to gain, or to avoid. And, instead, we lean into your heart that is full of love for us. Love that forgives and sustains. Love that grows and transforms. Holy Spirit, help us to keep rooting ourselves in the love of God so that we can stop striving in our own strength to be good, to do good for all the wrong reasons. Let love fill us to overflowing so that all we do comes from that love. So that we become like Jesus – so kind, so good, and completely others-oriented. Teach us, we pray, what it is to stop living for self, to move from ‘believing and behaving’ – and to start pursuing holiness, participating with You in the growing of fruit within us as we ‘behold and become’. Anoint our heads with oil so that our cups overflow, helping us believe with all our hearts and minds that your goodness and love will follow us all the days of our lives. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
(inspired by Galatians 5:22; Romans 8:1,29; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; Psalm 73:26, 86:5, 103:11–12; Ephesians 3:17; Hebrews 12:14; Psalm 23:5-6)

Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.

• 1 – Here’s a fun resource: BibleProject’s short video on ‘good’ or tov, https://bibleproject.com/videos/vocab-insight-tov-good/ 
• 2 – BibleProject’s article on “The Fruit of the Spirit”
• 3 – There’s a cool chart Google pulled together that contrasts ‘nice-ness’ with godly ‘kindness’, but I could only get it to paste into the space at the very bottom. So, scroll down if you’re curious.
• 4 – JD Walt on the Wake Up Call, “How Reputation Management Masks the Fruit of the Spirit,” 11/25/22
• 5 – I read Lynne Hybels’ book Nice Girls Don’t Change the World^ nearly two decades ago, and it was the first I’d heard a woman address the way we women have been shaped by partial truths or our own assumptions. It’s a short, little read that packs a lot of lived-experience with ‘kindness’ and ‘goodness’ as misplaced motivations and expectations.
• 6 – Amanda Held Opelt’s book, Holy Unhappiness^, is an incredible read for anyone who has learned, believed, and lived from the idea that if we are good or do good, then we get God’s blessing. So good. 
• 7 – Biblehub for the Greek word for ‘goodness’, agathosune
• 8 – This GotQuestions article on ‘goodness’ as a fruit of the Spirit
• 9 – JD Walt’s series and book on Paul’s letter to the Romans^ frequently emphasizes the difference between “believing and behaving” and “beholding and becoming.” Here’s one post in the series that mentions them.
• You’ll find a song for ‘kindness’ and one for ‘goodness’ on our Spotify playlist, Pursue Holiness. First, Stephen Curtis Chapman’s song, “Kindness,” challenges believers to live with hearts of kindness and to love like we’ve been loved — as a way to change the world! And, Hillside Worship Co has produced a groovy little song called, “Goodness Grows,” with all the language of seeds and fruit and the goodness of God’s harvest.
• My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes the first week of each month to those who have subscribed on my website. I also post them on Substack. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.
• Many of you have found me on Substack. Thank you so much! And, if you’d like to listen to (rather than read) these weekly posts, you can do so on Substack. It’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post. While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective.

Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike.

• As we progress in this fall series, we’ll be talking more and more about the rhythms we can engage in as the ‘means of grace’. Such rhythms are not tools to earn grace or holiness; rather, they’re active disciplines we enter into with Holy Spirit; they’re ways or places we can be transformed by God’s holiness. Very simply, the ‘means of grace’ are outward practices we employ in order to be more fully shaped by God’s life; they are the ‘means’ to being and living holy.
  
  A seventh ‘means of grace’ practice that would challenge us to grow in our kindness and goodness is getting out into the community, “feeding the hungry and clothing the naked”, as Jesus charged us. I’ve recently been convicted that as believers who live and serve in community, we must remember why we are here; it is literally feeding and clothing people, but it’s also engaging more deeply to help individuals and families break the cycles of poverty and brokenness. Can we all be praying about how that looks for our churches?

• We’re all called to share the truth about who Jesus is. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. May we use our whole selves to tell others about our holy God!!

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“All the Bits and Pieces” Photo by Victoria Soldaska on Unsplash.
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From #3:

Feature	Superficial Niceness	Biblical Kindness (Chesed / Khrēstotēs)
Motivation	A desire to avoid conflict, seek approval, or maintain cultural comfort.	A reflection of God’s heart and the internal presence of the Holy Spirit.
Depth	Cosmetic, bland, and conditional; it stands for little and folds under pressure.	Deep, active, and sacrificial; it addresses real needs and speaks truth with love.
Scope	Usually extended to those who are polite, similar, or easy to like.	Extended proactively to strangers, the vulnerable, outcasts, and even enemies.
Expectation	Looks for mutual politeness, social credit, or immediate reciprocation.	Gives generously and forgives unearned wrongs without expecting anything in return.