"Being" and "looking like" are two different things!
Do we want to try real hard to act like a kind person? Or do you want to be a kind person?
When we work at being a kind person we are acting according to the flesh in our own power to be something on the outside that we are not on the inside.
In order to really "be" a kind person we must ask the Holy Spirit to change us into one, if He does this we don't have to try, it will come naturally out of the flow of the Holy Spirit. We will be kind without having to think about it.
Proverbs 4:23
"Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow springs of life."
Galatians 5:22-23
"22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
Instead of trying real hard to be what we think God wants or others expect, we ought to be praying for Christ to make us the person He wants us to be.
Attempting to be kind on the outside without a heart change on the inside would be like painting a house full of rotten boards, the outside looks good for a while but the boards are rotten and will crumble eventually.
Do we want to look like a kind person or do we want to actually be a kind person?
1 Corinthians 13:4–8a "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth."
The key to this verse is that "Love is" not that "love looks like." What flows out of us naturally without effort is the real us.
When we understand that our character must be changed by the Holy Spirit we will stop pretending and become that which God wants us to be, authentically holy.
1 Peter 1:15-16
"15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall BE holy, for I am holy.”
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