THINK TOGETHER.
Do you feel good when you do good things?
READ TOGETHER
Proverbs 11:16-17. 16A gracious woman gets honor, and violent men get riches. 17A man who is kind benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself.
Solomon points out the gracious woman and the kind man. Gracious and kind are two words found all over the Bible, mostly describing God himself. God is gracious. God is kind. And when we have Jesus in our heart we can be gracious and kind too.
And who wouldn’t want to be gracious and kind?
The gracious woman gets honor. The kind man benefits himself. What is Solomon saying? He’s saying that when you live a life that seeks to help others, and puts others first it will result in God giving you honor, and praise, and you’ll feel good about yourself too.
Do you feel good when you do good things? Good! You should. It’s OK to feel good inside when you help others and do kind things for them.
The contrast is the cruel man. He only hurts himself. When we hurt others it should make us feel really bad inside. That’s called your conscience. If your conscience doesn’t feel bad when you do bad things, then you know that you have really begun to hurt yourself. You’ve made yourself numb and unfeeling, and that’s a scary place to be.
Jesus said that “the one who shows mercy (kindness) will be shown mercy.” That’s very true isn’t it. You get what you give. But with Jesus and the gospel we get his mercy even before we give it to others. When Jesus died for us that was his kindness being given to us, not because we were kind, but so that we can be kind.
Because of Jesus we have freely been shown God’s kindness.
With Jesus we can be kind.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Choose someone that your family can be kind to. Afterwards talk about how it made you feel to be kind. Did it benefit you or hurt you?
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus, help me to show the same grace and kindness to others that you have shown to me. Amen.
TLICfamily 