Kindness - Part 6: Growing in Kindness
You can’t manufacture kindness any more than you can manufacture a peach.
A peach doesn’t get produced by trying really hard to be a peach. It grows from a tree that stays connected to its root system, absorbing water, getting sunlight, doing the slow invisible work of chemistry and life. The peach is the result β not the effort.
Fruit of the Spirit works the same way. Kindness doesn’t get produced by white-knuckling your way into being a nicer person. It grows from staying connected to the Vine, and the Holy Spirit does the work.
But β and this is important β that doesn’t mean you just wait passively. You engage the disciplines. You create the conditions. You show up and do the things that make space for the Spirit to produce the fruit.
The Abiding Is Not Optional
Jesus says in John 15:4: “Remain in Me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine.”
The word “remain” β menΕ in Greek β means stay, dwell, abide. It’s present tense continuous. Keep staying. Keep dwelling. Keep abiding.
That means the disciplines aren’t a to-do list you complete and move on. They’re a posture of ongoing dependence. You pray and keep praying. You serve and keep serving. You open your home and keep opening it. And over time, the character of Christ forms in you β including His kindness.
Four Disciplines That Build Kindness
1. Serving β Killing Selfishness
Every act of service is a small death to self. You wanted to sit down. You serve instead. You wanted your money for yourself. You give it away. You wanted your time. You spend it on someone else.
That’s not martyrdom. That’s how the Holy Spirit kills the engine of selfishness β which is the thing that prevents kindness from ever forming.
Philippians 2:3-4: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Looking to the interests of others β actively, deliberately, repeatedly β is a kindness workout. And just like any workout, the first rep is the hardest. But over time, serving becomes your reflex, not your exception.
2. Hospitality β Opening Your Home, Opening Your Heart
Hospitality is not entertaining. It’s not having a perfect house and a curated menu. It’s saying: “There’s room at my table for you.”
The writer of Hebrews doesn’t hedge: “Show hospitality to one another, without grumbling” (1 Peter 4:9). No conditions attached. No perfect timing required. Just open your door.
Why is this such a kindness developer? Because it removes the insulation. When you let someone into your space β your mess, your routine, your life β you’re forced to be patient with their humanity, their quirks, their needs. Hospitality is kindness training at its most inconvenient.
3. Forgiveness β Kindness to People Who Don’t Deserve It
This is the discipline nobody signs up for willingly, but everyone needs.
When someone hurts you and you forgive them, you’re choosing their restoration over your right to retribution. That’s the hardest form of kindness there is. Not because it feels good β it often doesn’t. But because it refuses to let the wound determine your response.
Colossians 3:13: “Bear with each other and forgive any complaint you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
The standard isn’t whether they earned it. The standard is what Christ did for you β who absolutely did not earn it. That’s the model.
4. Generosity β Practical Help, Not Just Words
James 2:15-16 is the wake-up call:
“If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body β what does it profit?”
Words without resources are ceremony. Genuine kindness gets its hands dirty. It gives what it has β not what’s left over, but what another person actually needs.
This doesn’t mean you become a doormat. It means you develop the habit of looking at people’s situations and asking “what could I actually do right now?” And then doing it.
Community Is the Multiplier
Here’s what we miss about growing in kindness alone: you can’t.
You become like the people you spend the most time with. If your community isn’t practicing kindness, you’ll absorb unkind patterns without realizing it. If your community is selfish, you’ll adopt that default.
But if your community is kind β if the people around you regularly practice generosity, forgiveness, serving, hospitality β you’ll absorb those patterns too. Culture shapes character far more than intention ever does.
That’s why the writer of Hebrews says: “Consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
We need each other. Not as support groups or accountability apps, but as flesh-and-blood people who see us, challenge us, and model the kindness we haven’t learned yet.
The 30-Day Kindness Challenge
If you want to be intentional about growing in kindness, here’s a practical path:
Week 1: Serve someone daily β hold a door, carry groceries, help with a task, without being asked.
Week 2: Practice hospitality β invite someone over for a meal, even if your house isn’t perfect.
Week 3: Forgive someone in your mind you’ve been holding a grudge against. Write their name down and release it.
Week 4: Give generously β identify a need and meet it with something tangible.
Every day: Read one kindness Scripture and ask God to grow His kindness in you.
A Prayer for Today
Father, I confess that I have tried to manufacture kindness on my own β and failed. Teach me to abide. Teach me that kindness isn’t something I produce, but something You grow in me as I stay connected to Christ. Give me the discipline to serve, to open my home, to forgive, and to give practically β not to earn Your favor, but because Your kindness is already at work in me. And surround me with people who model the kindness I’m still learning. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Tomorrow: Day 7 β Final Reflection. A look back at the kindness series and a send-off into the rest of your life.
Reflection question: What’s the one discipline from this list that feels most unnatural to you right now β and what would it look like to practice it anyway this week?