Strong And Courageous - The One Year Daily Acts of Kindness Devotional

Strong and Courageous

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:9, NIV

I sometimes grow frustrated seeing Jesus repeatedly portrayed in pastoral scenes with the requisite woolly lamb in his arms or surrounded by a posse of peaceful youngsters. Yes, Jesus frequently embodied gentle compassion. But he was made of far sturdier stuff than the wimpy Jesus I so often see depicted in portraits.

Today we celebrate the birth of an audacious, bold Savior who stood up for the weak and who turned the religious leaders of his day upside down and inside out. They considered him to be a renegade, but he was actually a leader who offered forgiveness, calling the forgiven ones to leave behind their sinful ways.

He expected his disciples to be just as audacious. After his death, they were sent out into unknown places and lived lives that, even by the standards of that age, cannot be defined as comfortable or ordinary.

Being kind is often, I think, viewed by our American culture the same way as those portraits of Jesus: passive, naive, and—dare I say it—weak. Do not be fooled by our culture’s skewed understanding of kindness. We are not called to wimpy kindness; we are called to intentional kindness—the kind that requires us to lay down our lives; to sacrifice our time, talents, and treasure for others; to love the unlovable, stand up for the downtrodden, and wade into the muck of life. We are called to kindness that requires strength and courage as we get shoved far outside our comfort zones.

When we view life through the lens of biblical kindness, we will act in countercultural and radical ways. And isn’t that exactly what Christ calls us to—to live so differently from those around us that others seek us out to find out what we have, that they might have it too? As we live differently from those around us, we are not to be fearful or discouraged, but instead to be strong and courageous because the Lord our God goes with us wherever we go.

—Julie

— Today’s Act of Kindness —

Celebrate Christ’s birth with an especially courageous act of kindness.