TO FILL A LITTLE SPACE

A few months ago, a close friend shared with me an interesting thought he had just read somewhere. The message simply declared: “It is good to be important, but it’s more important to be good!”

Reflecting on that, I immediately remembered how relative the issue of human goodness is. I was equally conscious of what the Bible declares about this vital subject. In Jesus’ conversation with a rich young ruler, recorded in Matthew 19:17, the Master tenderly rebukes the gentleman by saying: “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.”

The apostle Paul also, writing about himself, reported: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find” (Romans 7:18).

On the other hand, St. Paul also alludes to one of the elements of the “fruit of the Spirit” to be “goodness” (Galatians 5:22-23). Thus, that which God Himself imparts to us, needs to be manifested in all our actions and interactions. Human goodness is, thus, possible in that sense, not as originating in or from any of us, but as a derived goodness, emanating from the divine Spirit’s operation within transformed persons!

The world is filled with individuals who may be important on account of what they do, or based on the power they wield. But that in itself will never guarantee a degree of goodness in anyone. True goodness proceeds from God, through the work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart, and it must redound to God’s glory alone! It can never be a source of human boasting.

Every redeemed of the Lord should strive to act righteously, to perform good works toward other members of the human race, as partial evidence of the transformation which has occurred, and continues to take place in the life of those yielded to God.

In his precious volume, “Jesus Did It Anyway” (The Paradoxical Commandments for Christians), Dr. Kent M. Keith stresses, “Who we are and how we live are more important than who remembers what we did.”

Elsewhere in the same volume, he also observes that “Jesus called us to be people who love and help others. That’s who we should be, no matter how people treat us in return.”

In answering the question before you, may your focus be, not on what people think you are, not on your personal opinion of who you may be but, rather, what God’s evaluation and ultimate verdict of you happens to show! And that can be easily ascertained through a spiritual inventory which finds you in harmony with the will of God, obedient to His commands, and always increasing in the knowledge of God, thus displaying His unique design for your earthly journey. It’s more a matter of “being” rather than of “doing”!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 9:57 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.