Jesus said if you show kindness to those who are opposed to you, you'll be rewarded extensively because you're acting like God. His kind nature makes Him unique. He constantly expresses His kindness to people who are neither grateful nor good.
In the same way, Christians need to be kind to others, because to do so is to adopt a characteristic of God. This is a key to holiness. You become holy like the Lord when you do the things that He does and, accordingly, a lack of holiness is evident when you act to the contrary.
Of course, being kind to people who deliberately set out to hinder you isn't easy. It takes an awful lot of effort. Yet Jesus said not only must you persevere when you face persecution, you actually need to adopt responses that are opposite to what nasty people expect.
Consider the example of Eric Liddell, a missionary in China during the early 20th Century. He became a Rollcall Warden in a Japanese interment camp at Weihsien. Another prisoner, Norman Cliff, recalled Liddell "won the confidence and respect of the Japanese guards."
Where less sanctified people might have resisted, this man was diligent in his service to those who had imprisoned him. Rather than acting like a traitor, he also helped his fellow inmates. For instance, when a prisoner exchange was arranged, Liddell gave his place to a pregnant woman.
He was still interned when he died of natural causes. "The entire camp, especially its youth, was stunned for days, so great was the vacuum that Eric's death had left," said Langdon Gilkey
(Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure)
.Jesus too gave His life. However, He didn't do this to save only a single soul, but to save all of mankind. This was the ultimate act of kindness. It happened because "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
The Bible states: "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man [or woman], though for a good man [or woman] someone [like Eric Liddell] might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrated his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Dying in the place of another, even if that person might be considered a lesser individual, is really quite kind. Eric Liddell had won a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics, yet he kindly allowed a pregnant woman to take his place. And he didn't hate the Japanese, but showed them kindness.
While you and I will, hopefully, never have the opportunity to show such kindness, the least each of us can do is be kind to those who are around us, even to people who are nasty. Rather than holding a grudge against someone, look for ways you can be kind to them. Then you'll be like Jesus.
Prayer: Jesus. Help me to show how I can be kind to those who seem like they don't deserve it. Amen.
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