Goodness
Titus 3:8 New Living Translation (NLT)
8 This is a trustworthy saying, and I want you to insist on these teachings so that all who trust in God will devote themselves to doing good. These teachings are good and beneficial for everyone.
Corrie Ten Boom wrote:
Often I have heard people say, “How good God is! We prayed that it would not rain for our church picnic, and look at the lovely weather!'” Yes, God is good when He sends good weather. But God was also good when He allowed my sister, Betsie, to starve to death before my eyes in a German concentration camp. I remember one occasion when I was very discouraged there. Everything around us was dark, and there was darkness in my heart. I remember telling Betsie that I thought God had forgotten us. “No, Corrie,” said Betsie, “He has not forgotten us. Remember His Word: ‘For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him.'” Corrie concludes, “There is an ocean of God’s love available–there is plenty for everyone. May God grant you never to doubt that victorious love–whatever the circumstances.”
Only God is good. Even in the worst of circumstances God is good.
Jesus said it himself in Luke 18:19 19 “Why do you call me
good?” Jesus asked him. “Only
God is truly good.”
and Psalm16:2
2 I said to the Lord, “You are my Master!
Every good thing I have comes from you.”
If you read the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation you would discover that His goodness never changes.
His goodness is not changed by our circumstances.
His goodness is not changed by what we are feeling.
His goodness is not based on how faithful or unfaithful we are.
His goodness is not based on how obedient or disobedient we are.
God is always good. He is not going to change.
We are the ones who change!
Let’s go back to Understanding the Bible 101: If you remember God is not the one who took the bite of the fruit in the Garden of Eden; nor did He TELL them to eat the forbidden fruit. God did not bring sin, disease, war, and selfishness
into the world nor did the Enemy! Mankind did! We blame the Enemy (The devil) but He didn’t bring evil into the world. Mankind did!
I read a quote the other day that said, “as long as there are humans there will be evil in the world.” So the enemy doesn’t cause evil to happen nor does God cause evil to happen. Evil happens because there are humans.
If you look at the scriptures – there is nothing good about us.
Ephesians 2:3 – We started out bad being born with evil natures …….
Romans 3: 10-12 There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless. There is not who does good, there is not even one.
We start out selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed. None of us here is born naturally good! There are people who do good but we are talking about people who are born good. Scriptures teach us that none of us have a natural inclination of pure goodness. All of us are flawed.
Look at children. Don’t we have to teach them what is right and wrong and what is good and bad? We don’t have a natural inclination for goodness.
We are born separated from God. We all are born with a selfish nature. We are born into this world with one enemy: God.
Psalm 14:1, Psalm 53:1, remind us there is no one who does good.
We battle with Him until we humble ourselves and finally surrender. This is why spiritually we must be born again (John 3).
Think about it. When we don’t get our way, what do we do? We throw tantrums. And when we get older with just throw adult tantrums. We just become more sophisticated at throwing tantrums. Children just let it rip. We adults sulk, complain, go silent, withdrawal, and make life horrible for those who are close to us.
Our goodness comes from being in a relationship with Him.
We, as God’s people, are not good in and of ourselves in the way God is. With God’s help we have the potential for doing good and being good through the empowerment of His Holy Spirit and the presence of God in our lives through Jesus Christ we can attain this attribute. In this way, we are able to reflect God’s goodness in our own lives and not just have it as the surface appearance that so many have.
Look at the story of the Rich man in Luke 18. He comes with a question, “Good teacher what should I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus rattles off a few of the Ten Commandments. The rich man response was that he has kept those commandments since He was young. In other words, he did all the right things. On the surface he looked good but when Jesus said to put that righteous into action by selling everything he had and giving it to the poor. He walked away sad.
Most of us would say that a person that a person who keeps the Ten Commandments is a good person. The Pharisees kept the Ten Commandments. Judas kept the Ten Commandments. There are people who swear by the Ten Commandments. The Pharisee’s look good on the outside. But Jesus called them a brood of vipers and what washed tombs . Judas kept the Ten Commandments but he ended up betraying Jesus. The Rich man kept the Ten Commandments but he walked away sad.
All of these examples were good people – God wants to produce in us something more than just a surface appearance of good. We can do that. The devil can do that.
God wants to produce goodness in us. Not just good acts.
Most of us in here would call ourselves good people. We keep the Ten Commandments. We come to church. We give a tithe or a $20 tip to God. We feel good about ourselves. We help in a ministry. We pray for others. Some of us read our Bibles. Some of us do devotions. Some of us are even leaders. All of these are good things. We call our self, good, because of the good things we have done.
Isaiah 64:6 reminds us that “When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags.”
God wants to produce in us an intense need to devote ourselves to doing good. Not just for show but allowing God to transform our:
- Selfishness into otherness
- Self-centeredness into other-centeredness
- Self- absorbentness into a living sacrifice
How does this transformation begin? (your part)
- Understand how good God has been to you. (think on things that are noble, right true, trustworthy). Romans 8
- Think of how good God has been to you and thank Him!!
- Put your confidence in the One who created goodness.
- Devote yourself to doing good.
Repeat these steps over and over and over and over and over and over again. This will bring God’s goodness to the core of your being. We need God’s goodness at the core of our being in order to reflect God’s goodness in our own lives and not just have it as the surface appearance that so many have.
Like the other Fruit of the Spirit we have talked about, we cannot manufacture goodness.
According to Webster’s New Universal Dictionary, “goodness” is a euphemism for ‘God’. In other words Goodness in the Bible is God himself.
Goodness is a Fruit of the Spirit that can only be produced by God.
Psalm 125:4
O Lord, do good to those who are good,
whose hearts are in tune with you.
This verse reveals a key element connected to goodness—being upright—or righteous in our hearts. Not just visibly but in our hearts and minds, at the very core of our being. This is the goodness that is missing in these individuals that only look good on the surface.
Goodness is energized excellence of character that manifests itself in active good. It is more often directed toward those who do not deserve benevolence.
In other words, it is enthusiastic action in doing the right thing. (active righteousness).
Like the other fruits we have talked about – there is a counterfeit goodness.
This past week I had lunch with a friend. An older couple started talking to us and they thought the other person with me was my son. The friend I was with is much more bolder than I have been in my faith. There in the middle of Wendy’s he said, “you must be a believer?” The older man fumbled around and said yes. And then proceeded to tell us that he was with God when he was weeding his garden, pulling weeds, doing anything outside. So he asked, “do you follow Jesus?” He responded that he didn’t need to because he was with Him all the time. The older woman was more honest. She said I am not sure. And then chastised her husband for lying to us about being believers.
This is what hypocrisy and spiritual phoniness look like:
1 John 4:20 ESV (English standard version)
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
James 1:26 ESV
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Matthew 6:1 ESV
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 15:7-9 ESV
You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
Romans 2:3 ESV
Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those
who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?
1 John 2:9 ESV
Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
There are 191 more verses that deal with this issue (it is a pretty big deal to God).
If you take a look at the Acts you will get a good picture of what goodness looks like. It wasn’t because of the good acts they were doing that were causing such a great stir and transforming the culture in which they lived. They did it with enthusiasm because they allowed God to replace their selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed hearts and minds with an intense need to devote themselves to doing good.
God is asking the same of us.
mondayschoolblog 