Remember this story? "As Jesus started on His way, a man ran up to Him and fell on his knees before Him. 'Good Teacher,' he asked, 'what must I do to inherit eternal life?' 'Why do you call me good?' Jesus answered. "No one is good, except God alone." (Mark 10:17-18 NIV) Actually, I'm encouraged. It reminds me that the problem of "good people" has been around for a long time. It is one of the hard challenges of the ministry. How do you reach the heart of a self-proclaimed "good person"? How do you pierce the "self-righteousness" armor? So many people keep you at arm's length saying "but I'm a good person." I want to ask "by whose standards?"
If any of us look around, we can see people who are more rude, discourteous, or hateful than ourselves. Does that then give us the right to proclaim that we are the model of courtesy and deportment? I think not. We have simply loweredd the standard to our own eye-level.
The problem of the man coming to Jesus was that his standard was another human, not the Son of God: what a game of self-deception to play when we make ourselves the "reality test"! Jesus told us to beware and watch for folks who made themselves the ideal. Only by looking to Jesus do we see goodness "fleshed out."
Look at the life and work of Jesus and compare. A comparison in self-deception is stated "you don't have to go to Church to be good."Correct! We go to the church house to study the Bible together to define Christian goodness in our contemporary setting and then pray for one another to be drawn by the Holy Spirit to that standard. If you are "hooked" on self-righteousness, you need a good "detoxification center." I'm sure God has one near you. After being emptied of "self" you can become a vessel of His goodness.
"Father, our world is so hungry for real goodness. The lack of the real thing makes us susceptible to
cheap imitations. Will you empty your true goodness into our spirits? Thank you! Amen"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment