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Christian Warmth
“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32).
A fellow-believer once told me, “I repeat this text to myself almost every day.”
I noticed recently that the verse before it is a stark contrast: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31). The things mentioned in this verse are like the dark clouds that so often roll across the grey winter sky in Canada where I live. They blot out the warmth and light of the sun until they are past and gone.
So often the clouds of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking cause a chill in our relationships with one another. But we need to seek to warm one another with Christian kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness. Like those native islanders of Melita, of whom it says, “And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold” (Acts 28:2).
Will you be spreading the warmth of Christ today?
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