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The Fruit of the Spirit: Goodness
What does it mean to "be good?" Whose rules are you supposed to follow? What if I haven't followed the rules?
Romans 7:19, 24-25
When you were a kid and your parents dropped you off at someone’s house what did they always tell you? Be good. What do they mean by that? Follow the rules. Do what you’re supposed to do. Don’t get into any trouble, or else.
We talk about the fruit of the Spirit goodness. That’s all we’re referring to isn’t it? Being virtuous, being moral, following the rules, but whose rules? We follow the rules or morality of the world seems it is ever changing, doesn’t it?
No goodness is really obeying and following God’s Rules. His rules as summarized in the Ten Commandments. If you read through the Ten Commandments you see what the Bible says about them is true that the law of God is good.
How have you done that being good? Following the rules? Living a moral and upright life as a Christian? Yes for us even as Christians we know our sin and we’ve fallen into sins of lust and of greed and of hatred. We gossiped and lied so many other sins against God’s commandments we see our failures at being good. In fact we must confess with the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 7.
So I fail to do the good I want to do. Instead, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:19, 24-25)
The Apostle Paul expresses his failures at being good even when he wanted to. And yet he places his trust, his hope, his thankfulness in God for giving us Jesus. Jesus who has been perfect and good in every way in our place. Yes that same God who has given us Jesus who also helps us to live and to act according to his good purpose to be good not in order to earn heaven but to be good and of thankfulness for what God has done for us in Christ. May God produce in us this fruit to the Spirit: goodness. Amen.
