After David committed adultery and murder and the Lord regarded all of it as evil, the Lord sent a prophet named Nathan to confront David in his sin (2 Samuel 12). Like any good preacher, Nathan set up David with a killer illustration:

“David, there were two men in a certain city. One was filthy rich. He had tons of cattle, tons of sheep, lots of money and could afford anything he wanted. The other guy was poor. He only had one lamb and he loved it. He treated the lamb like a daughter, fed the lamb from his own plate, and even snuggled with it. One day the rich man had a guest visit, and instead of slaughtering one of his many animals, he killed the poor man’s lamb for his dinner party with his guest.”

When David heard the story, he burned with anger. He did not want that type of ridiculous, selfish and evil behavior tolerated in one of the cities under his watch. He wanted justice and restitution, so he fiercely declared: “As the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! Because he has done this thing and shown no pity, he must pay four lambs for that lamb.”

David missed the point of the illustration. Like David, in our blindness we can be angered by another’s sin but hardened to our own. We are often the same way. We can be exponentially more disgusted with the sin in other people’s lives than we are with our own. Our own sin can fail to anger us the way someone else’s sin does. Here are three common examples of this:

1. We can abhor laziness in others while being addicted to our jobs.

Laziness is sin, but so is finding our worth in our jobs. If we bemoan laziness in others, we must be careful that the plank of workaholism isn’t in our own eyes.

2. We can bemoan sins in our culture while being uncompassionate.

God regards our failure to love others and share the good news of the gospel as sin. He is displeased with our lack of compassion, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. Yes, He is full of truth. But He is also full of grace.

3. We can bemoan materialism while being stingy and ungenerous.

If we bemoan materialism because we would rather hoard, our sin is no less offensive to God. While using money in attempts to gain status or comfort is empty, so is using money to build a false sense of security.

In our sinfulness, we can easily hate the sins of others more than we hate our own. We need His grace to overcome this.

This article originally appeared here.

Supply and demand is not only a fundamental economic principle, but a cultural assumption. When the supply of a product or service becomes scarce, it becomes more valuable. If there is an unlimited availability, it simply remains worthless for people. Is it possible to leverage scarcity to drive engagement at your church?

Engagement continues to be a critical factor that many churches are looking to increase impact. We want more people to engage in our services, on our service teams and in our mid-week groups. Scarcity is a powerful tool to help drive engagement and, ultimately, growth at your church. With “Sunday always coming” we give the perception that there is no scarcity to our activities, however, here are five ways to position our ministry to drive more engagement using scarcity:

Seating in Auditorium – Church works better full. It’s just true. Church leaders love Easter and Christmas because their auditoriums are fuller than normal. The feeling of only a few empty seats creates a positive vibe in the church. What if your church reduced the seating capacity at some “non-prime time” services to help create that sort of buzz every week? I’ve seen this done at some of the fastest growing churches in the country. They will offer a multiple service times but in the “off prime” services they will remove seats to compress the audience together. This could be done by either removing the seats or using “pipe and drape” to block off a section or two.

Group Start Up Windows – A common strategy for churches encouraging people to get into a mid-week group is by limiting the windows people can join. In the beginning, this seems counterintuitive because it would appear that allowing people to join whenever they are ready is a better strategy. However, churches that limit the window for people to join have found that there is a focused energy on joining before the window closes which helps move people into a group. Our friends at North Point Church use an event called GroupLink to help encourage people to attend. They’ve been employing this strategy for almost two decades and have seen consistent growth in their group attendance.

Discount Cliffs for Sign Ups – Is your youth group heading out on a retreat in the coming season? Are you tired of everyone signing up in the last week to go? By providing a financial incentive to sign up early you’ll move some of your families to register sooner to get the lower price. The best practice is to have three different prices with a cost spread of about 15 percent for the lowest price which is the “super early bird” rate. Not only will this move your registrations earlier and help you plan better for the event but over time as you repeat this strategy you’ll notice a change in the registration trends and be better at predicting registrations. This strategy can be employed with any event where you need people to pay a fee to register.

Free Ticketing for Big Days – Christmas Eve and Easter continue to be critical times for churches to reach out into their community. Many leading churches will use some form of free tickets for these big days to encourage people to register ahead of time for the event. The scarcity of tickets “selling out” encourages the community to invite their friends early so that they can get their desired service time. It also helps if your church members ask their friends for a confirmed commitment as the scarcity of the tickets means that they need to actually register their intent. Free ticketing also results in the church gaining the contact information of every registrant before the event occurs. You can use this contact information to plan your follow up with guests before the event even happens.

Series Preaching – Prevailing churches package up their content into four- to eight-week “series” that help provide a framework on what the church is discussing. Rather than just having one sermon after another, series preaching allowing the communicator to have a “story arch” that goes from one week to the other. This adds scarcity to our Sunday mornings as each series has a “beginning, middle and end” which encourages people to attend. Expanding churches use a collection of approximately four-week long series on average which means they get 12 opportunities a year to engage with their community with a “limited time offer” on their sermons.

This article originally appeared here.

“He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness” (Hebrews 12:10).

“And now I am happy all the day” (“At the Cross,” a gospel song in our hymnals).

It’s good to be happy.  I’m all in favor of it, and I think the Lord is also.

However.

God’s primary concern is not in making us happy. He does not fret because someone is displeased with the job He is doing, someone else is unhappy with the way a Scripture text is worded, and another is complaining about the weather today.

Pleasing us does not appear to be high on His agenda. He seems not in the least concerned that some of us do not like His methods or the personnel He has sent in our direction as our teachers, pastors, comforters, companions.

I can just hear it now. “Lord, are you aware that some of us are unhappy with you? Doesn’t that concern you?” He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. (Psalm 2)

Scripture shows that God is far more interested in pleasing Himself and making Himself happy than in satisfying us.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, as we used to say as kids.

God wants to make us holy.

Now, we need to say that when He is pleased with us and we are living holy and faithful lives, doubtless we experience happiness in the fullest and truest sense of the word.

However.

Making us holy is a far more difficult task than making us happy. The Almighty can make us happy by sending us fluff and toys, sweetness and softness, and never require anything remotely difficult from us.

To make us holy, however, is a more arduous task, one that will involve friction and sparks and may produce pain and discomfort.

Not all the children will be able to sit through the discipling sessions. Some, addicted to sweetness and softness and forever floating between churches and religions in search of some, will get up and leave the room. Only those wishing to be pleasing to the Father and to be shaped into the likeness of the Lord Jesus will endure to the end.

“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification” (I Thessalonians 4:3).

Sanctification. 

Sanctification means being changed into the likeness of Christ, a process that begins at the moment of our salvation, that continues throughout our earthly life, and that is completed only when we stand in His presence. “We shall be changed” (I Corinthians 15:51). “We shall be like Him” (I John 3:2).

“We all,” said the Apostle Paul, “are being transformed into the same image (of Christ) from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

In order to achieve this, to make us more and more like Jesus, the Father will do a lot of things, some thrilling and some quite painful. He will also allow a lot of things, and seem to turn His back when His most faithful children/servants are having the hardest time of it. (But keep in mind, as a friend likes to point out, that the teacher is always silent when the students are being tested.)

You will not always understand. I type that and smile, as something inside me says, “You will not often understand!”

One. He will say ‘no’ to us at times. 

You’ve noticed all those “thou shalt nots” in Scripture. Think of them as fences. Outside are poisonous weeds, venomous critters and scary places. He wants us to stay inside where it’s safe.

God will forbid certain things, behaviors, activities, entertainments, pursuits. “Abstain from sexual immorality…for God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification” (I Thessalonians 4:4,7).

The faithful will not be looking for a proof text (“Did God actually forbid this in the Bible anywhere?”) but will pay attention to the witness of the Spirit within his/her heart. That is reason enough for not participating in a certain behavior, entertainment or pursuit.

Two. He will discipline (chasten or chastise) us.

“Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Hebrews 12:6). If you can live the Christian life without being disciplined, says Scripture, then the news is all bad. “Then you are illegitimate children and not sons” (12:8).

After all, said Jesus, “Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:2).

Simply put, the Lord takes the obedient to the woodshed. The Lord requires more of the faithful. The untamed and undisciplined He leaves to their own devices.

Discipline is a sure sign God loves us and that we are His.

Three. He will allow trouble to come our way from time to time.

The purifying process involves fire, heat and pressure. Those things are painful, but the end result is pleasing to the Master Artist. “For the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross.”

The passage Matthew 10:16ff also reminds us that the trouble the Lord allows into our lives may be for a witness to outsiders. “Caesar ain’t coming to your revival,” we like to remind God’s people. “So the Lord will be asking some of you to be hauled into court so the high judge can ask the big question: ‘Tell us exactly what you were preaching in the marketplace.’ The Holy Spirit will be the One speaking, so don’t plan a sermon for the occasion.”

God did this in the life of Paul. See 2 Timothy 4:16-18.

Four. He will be with us every step of the way, using everything that happens to us for His purposes.

“I will never leave thee nor forsake thee… The Lord is my Helper and I will not be afraid” (Hebrews 13:5-6).

“When you pass through the waters, I’ll be with you. And through the rivers…and through the fire…” (Isaiah 43:2). “Do not fear, for I am with you” (43:5).

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me” (Psalm 23:4).

(Here’s a Bible study you will enjoy. Reading through Scripture, notice how almost every time the Lord calls someone into His work, His constant answer to their protests is the same thing: “I will be with you.” He said that to Moses, to Joshua, to Gideon, Jeremiah and so many others. Clearly, the Lord thinks His presence should calm our fears and compensate for our missing parts!)

Five. The end result is you will have a joy deeper and a peace greater than what we normally think of as “happiness.” This new joy and peace will be rock solid and steadier than the fluctuating, bobbing-up-and-down, ephemeral thing we call happiness. It’s what the Lord had in mind, I expect, when He said, “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”

Six. Our constant prayer should be “Thy will be done” and “Have thine own way, Father.” The wiser we are, the more we will find ourselves wanting not our own way, craving not our own will, and seeking not our own pleasure. But His.

His way, His will, His pleasure.

I love the text which says, “In the volume of the Book it is said of me, ‘I come to do Thy will.’” Or, “I delight to do Thy will, O Lord.” (That’s Hebrews 10:7, quoting Psalm 40:7-8.) So, what we have here is the New Testament writer quoting the Psalmist who, himself, is quoting from something somewhere. I love it.

Seven. The point is our faithfulness. Our obedience.

In the Philippian jail, Paul and Silas were not happy. But they were rejoicing. They were faithful. And God used them in a wonderful way (Acts 16:25ff).

No chastening for the present time is enjoyable. But afterwards… (Well, you know the rest of that, I’m guessing. It’s Hebrews 12:11.)

God bless you and me with faithfulness. “Be thou faithful unto the end and I will give thee a crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).

Then, your happiness will be constant, full and complete.

This article originally appeared here.

My family didn’t make much of birthdays. In fact, with the exception of the year we went to Pietro’s Pizza to play video games, none stand out. But on October 4, 1996, my wife made reservations at a steak house for my birthday. When we arrived at our table, a handful of friends yelled, “Surprise!” That was a good day. They spent time and money celebrating God’s gift of another year to me.

What did my wife and friends demonstrate that night? Kindness. It’s a simple virtue, one that’s easily overlooked. However, the presence of kindness is preeminent evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in a believer’s heart.

THE OVERLOOKED VIRTUE

I used to think vanilla was simply the absence of chocolate. Therefore, I couldn’t understand why anyone would actually prefer vanilla ice cream. Vanilla, I thought, is simply what’s left when you remove all flavors.

It’s easy to think of kindness along similar lines, as merely the absence of vice. Given this understanding, a kind person is not rude, not overbearing, not mean. But there’s so much more to kindness than the absence of meanness.

Kindness is the presence of compassion and generosity toward others. The kind person is helpful, useful and lovingly working for the well being of others. If goodness is the light of God shining within the human heart, then kindness is the light of God shining from the human heart. Kindness exists for the benefit of others.

To put it bluntly, a person sitting at home simply remembering my birthday isn’t being kind. Kindness has feet and hands. Kindness gets in the car, goes to the restaurant and waits. Kindness pulls out a credit card and cheerfully pays the price of enjoying an evening with a friend. Goodness is. Kindness works. Kindness isn’t being Mr. Nice; it’s making a difference.

OUR KIND GOD

Because kindness is a fruit of the Spirit of God, it should come as no surprise to learn kindness is an attribute of God.

In Romans 1, Paul paints a startling portrait of humanity’s darkness. Wickedness explodes in the heart untouched by saving grace: “They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Rom. 1:29b–31). Like a skilled attorney building his case, Paul leaves no room for doubt: Our condemnation is deserved. In Romans 3:23, he summarizes his argument, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Our only hope to escape his judgment is to embrace his kindness, kindness we all once spurned. But God can melt the coldest heart. His kindness ran toward us when we walked away from him in unbelief. As Paul states in Romans 2:4, “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” While we were set in our rebellious ways, God’s kindness appeared in a manger in Bethlehem (Titus 3:7). When we were flooded with anger and racism, God’s kindness grafted Gentiles into his family tree (Rom. 11:22). And though we continually fall short of his glory, in Christ God promised his kindness as an eternal gift (Eph. 2:7). Though we deserve his wrath, we’re the beneficiaries of his kindness.

We should expect those filled with God’s Spirit to be kind as well.

WHEN KINDNESS ERUPTS

Being feted by friends at a birthday party was a real (albeit small) act of kindness. It pales in comparison to the day a high-school friend told me I was going to hell.

We’d gone to a play together. I expected casual conversation. Instead, she said she was a Christian. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but over the course of the evening I discovered it means the world. She affirmed it all. There really is a God. He’s made himself known in Christ. The Bible is his Word. To know Christ as Lord and Savior is to have everlasting life. She believed everything, the whole kit and caboodle.

My back began to bow as I not-so-gently pushed back: “Do you think I’m going to hell?” I asked her.

I’ll never forget her response, “Yes, Aaron, if that’s what you believe and how you live your life, then yes, I think you are going to hell.” She could have been polite. She could have played Ms. Nice, changed the conversation, and let the tension in the room run its course. Instead, she did the hardest and kindest thing a Christian can ever do. She challenged me with the truth of the gospel.

This is what happens when kindness erupts in the hearts of God’s children. We challenge and comfort others with the truth of Christ. Kindness, Paul explains, led him to share the gospel in the midst of “afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights [and] hunger” (2 Cor. 6:4b–5). Kindness (along with humility, meekness and patience) empowers you to forgive a brother or sister (Col. 3:12–13). Kindness helps you put “bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander…along with all malice” to death before they tear up local churches (Eph. 4:30–32).

Kindness is the virtue that leads us to act toward others the way Christ Jesus acted toward us—with love, care, compassion and concern.

“TREASURES OF INESTIMABLE PRICE”

I know I’m being kind to the church I serve when I sit in my study and prepare for next Sunday’s message. The primary way I practically serve the body of Christ is by preaching. I long for the people of God to be spiritually well fed. This takes hours of hard work—hours I kindly and joyfully give.

And yet there is more to pastoral ministry. The old Suffolk preacher, Charles Bridges, noted: “The ministry is not…a work of contemplation, but of active, anxious, devoted employment. The spirit, business and delight of doing good must therefore form an essential part of preparation for the work.”[1] He went on to call the daily opportunities to visit the sick, share the gospel with kids and engage one’s neighbors “treasures of inestimable price.”[2] Bridges was right.

A kind pastor does more than preach, he enters into the lives of those entrusted to his care. He does so without favoritism and guile. He engages with members of the body: the old and the young, the rich and the poor, those who look like him and those who don’t, the confident and the doubting. In short, as Bridges would put it, he is actively, anxiously and devotedly employed for the good of his flock. He does so much more than preach the Word of God.

Pray all your elders are like this. I want to grow in this area. I know on the Day of Judgment God will weigh more than the orthodoxy of my preaching. He will assess the kindness of my pastoring.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Are you marked by kindness? Are compassion and generosity toward others present in your life? What would it look like for you to grow in kindness?

• Get to work in your sphere of influence. Trying to change the world is a good thing. By all means, read books about evangelizing the nations, fighting racism, and engaging in orphan care. But let’s not forget our backyard. Kindness, properly understood, will cause you to reach out to your workmates, your neighbors and your friends. Show them kindness, and you model something of the Savior.

• Create some margin. Between work, family and screen time many of us have lost the capacity to act in kindness toward our neighbors. Those everyday opportunities to serve, what Bridges called “treasures of inestimable price,” go sadly unnoticed. A little margin in a busy life will go a long way. Consider reading Kevin DeYoung’s book Crazy Busy.

• Make your church ground zero for acts of kindness. Let your kindness be evident in practical acts of service toward brothers and sisters. Kindness will show itself in everything from a word of encouragement to a brother in despair to a grocery store gift card for a needy family. Stay a few minutes after the service to catch up. Open your home to a small group. Write a letter of encouragement to a deacon. These are practical acts of kindness that will bless the body of Christ. Surprising a friend on his or her birthday wouldn’t be a bad idea either!

• Remember the kindness of God. If you’re anything like me, you’re tempted to take pride in your kindness. Self-righteousness stalks all of us. The key is to see kindness as the extraordinary gift of our God who demonstrated his own kindness on a cross. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). Our kindness to others is always rooted in our God who is kind enough to save us.

Kindness may be one of the most overlooked pieces of the fruit of the Spirit. But it shouldn’t be, for it takes us to the very heart of the gospel.

* * * * *

[1]Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry (Edinburgh, UK: Banner of Truth, 1959), 65. Italics added.

[2]Ibid., 66.

This was originally published in 9marks.org and was reprinted by permission.