Pay It Forward

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Ephesians 4:32

Have you seen the movie “Pay it Forward”?  In it, to pay it forward means to do three good deeds for others in repayment of a good deed that one receives.  These good deeds should be things that the other person cannot accomplish on their own so that an understanding that we need to help one another can spread through the community.  The Liberty Mutual insurance company had a series of well received commercials along this line where one person would hold a door open for another and then that person would pick up something that another dropped and so on.   There is something that draws us to these random acts of senseless kindness that makes us stop and think, hey we can be better people, we can rise above everything we see around us.

Many people have said Christianity is silly since it is based on God becoming man and allowing himself to be killed.  To these people, it is pure nonsense that a true God would even consider this.  But it is this very thing that makes Christianity so powerful and ultimately so true.  The supreme act of selfless kindness that Christ displayed on the cross is a mystery.  Why would God do this?  He doesn't need us and could just as easily ignore us.  And yet, the Bible clearly states that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  God in His infinite patience and grace gave us the ultimate kindness of salvation through Christ  (Ephesians 2:7-8).  We don’t need to understand it just as we don’t need to understand why a stranger would hold a door for us.  We just need to say thank you.

God wants us to pay His kindness forward.  “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful”  (Luke 6:25-26).  God asks us to be the one who starts the chain of kindnesses, to be the light that others look to.  Let’s help each other to take part in God’s plan and continue spreading His love by doing the little things for others that they might not be expecting.  You never know what your kindness may do to someones heart!