Wednesday, July 23, 2003
“GRACIOUS GOODNESS”
The kind of “goodness” I wrote about in my last Blog is something very different from the idea of the “good” or the “righteous” as a class of people who claim to belong to an ethical elite. What I hear Jesus saying is, “Don’t divide the human family into the good and the bad, and don’t ever ‘congratulate’ yourself that you are one of the ‘good’.” The Bible says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray.” (Isaiah 53:6) But God is good and the more we trust God the more of His goodness will be reflected in us.
So many people have a warped notion of “God’s goodness”. To reflect the goodness of God is not like being put in a “strait jacket”. It is more like an adventure. Maybe even like a roller coaster. The grace of God doesn’t lead us into a narrow pattern of behavior dictated by those who claim to know just what goodness consists of. Rather it leads us into freedom and unexpected joy.
Having one’s “goodness” on display is not like “show-boating” or “grandstanding” (to use a couple of old expressions!) or like being hypocritical—pretending to be good but actually being everything but “good”. You know the type of individuals I’m talking about. They are the people who go around boasting of their Christianity.
If we keep thinking about our goodness, comparing ourselves with others, always talking about what we think is right, we will become very ungracious and come across as a “prude” (another old fashioned word!) a “stuck-up” Christian.
The people who have the kind of “gracious goodness” the Bible encourages us to have are good people in the sense that their goodness is part of a character that beautifully and naturally reveals them as children of God.
Jesus was like that. His goodness was not thrust at people from on high but unconsciously and graciously conveyed to people as He made no claim for Himself but referred all goodness to God. Read Mark 10:17-18.
What I want to be able to do—but don’t do very well—is to be able to face the wickedness of the world I live in and the deception of my own heart with open eyes and yet to know that God has not abandoned me (or any of His children). But He has offered me such a power of love that I can say with Paul, “Where sin abounds grace abounds even more”. (Romans 5:20)
I want to be able to rejoice in the goodness that meets me every day in unexpected places and in all kinds of people. I want to begin each day with God to be reminded of His forgiveness and goodness as it shines in the face of Christ.
The more I am full of His Spirit the more will His gracious goodness take root in my life through faith. So I hopefully won’t glory in any pseudo-goodness of my own but will acknowledge that any goodness I possess is not mine but God’s.
That’s enough thinking for one day! OUCH! My head hurts!!
Jim
posted by jim 11:11 PM 0 comments
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