Goodness For Goodness Sake

Goodness for Goodness SAKE THE fruit of the spirit is Goodness Gal. 5:22

2Pe 1: 5 make every effort to add to your faith goodness. Eph 5: 9for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness. Ps 23:6Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

How do we define the word Good? We can say that was good food, it is good weather and that was a good report. We might say he did a good job or that was a good ways from here. Has any one ever told you go and have fun and be good? For some of us t o have fun and be good cannot be put together. In the dictionary there are 17 categories for the word Good. We even find in the Bible that the word good is used in different ways. The words good and goodness is used 619 times in the Bible.

How would you define the good life? Would we find it in food, toys, sports, clothes, wealth or looking good? Who sets the standard for looking good? We have white people who want to be tanned and black people who want to be white. We have places to go to get our hair colored, help lose weight, buy clothes and products that will take away wrinkles or age spots.

As I look in the Bible when it comes to the clothes we wear I found three things. We should dress modestly, not try to wear clothes that we look like the other sex and we should wear clean clothes. When it comes to good what does it take for you to feel good? Would you like a vacation, a better job, be pain free or be at parties all the time. We have heard the expression, “If it feels good, do it.” We might equate good with looking good or feeling good or having goods. How much do we have to have to feel good? We have choices about places we eat at, cars we drive, clothes we wear, where we place our money like CD’s, Stocks, IRA”s or a savings account. How many choices do we see when we go shopping for food?

The Bible’s standard for good is to be filled with goodness. This means being a good person and doing good to others. What is goodness? The Bible tells us that God created everything good in the beginning. He made everything for a purpose.

Let me state that Goodness is being what God meant for us to be. When we do what God intended for us to do we will feel good. EPH 2:10 “He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” We are not saved by the good works that we do but we are saved that we might start doing good works. Goodness is a life style. What do we benefit from goodness? It causes us to have a good self-esteem. Feeling good about yourself does not come because you look good by the world’s standard, you feel good or that you have things. God’s purpose for you is that you do good and be good. We are not born good. Check out a baby or young child to see if we are good. We have to have our lives changed by the One who is Goodness. Our goodness does not come by man’s standard but What God expects. A boy came to his mother and told her he was eight feet tall. She asked to see his ruler and it was 6’ ruler.

Goodness only comes from God. When one believes and lets Christ in their life then God’s Goodness becomes apart of life. PH 2:13 “For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him.” 1:6, 10 “I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again.” “So that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.” God puts a new desire and power in you to do what is right and good. God works from the inside out. Let us look at five ways of putting goodness in our lives:

1. We put Goodness into our lives as we read the Bible and understand it. We need to fill our minds and life with the living word of God. Our values that we have come from only two sources and those are the world and His Word. This book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book. 2 Tim. 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 PT 1:20-21 “you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Just because you own a Bible or listen to the Bible will not be good enough. You need to have the Bible in your mind. How did Jesus defeat the Devil’s temptation? He had the Bible in His mind. Can you really expect to believe the Bible if you have not read it and put it to work in your life? This brings to the question do you have the Word of God as a greater priority in your life that the newspaper, TV, radio or book you read. Which gets your best time? It is in the Bible that we get our absolutes for living. That is why some do not like the Bible because they do not want there to be an absolute on how we are to live. Back in the 60’s there was moment to change everything but they also did not want to have any laws or principles. If you take time to read the Bible and understand it and put its words into practice you will become a good person.