Today's Word

 

The next characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit that Paul names in Galatians 5 is “goodness”. Looking at the references to goodness in the whole of the Bible, the greatest number by far reference ‘the goodness of God” There are very few which refer to the goodness of man. Goodness itself is very hard to define, in practical terms. We can all give a fuzzy meaning to ‘goodness’ and we all perhaps know goodness when we see it, but I am very hard-pressed to list all the different demonstrations of goodness.

Because it is largely defined as a characteristic of God in the Bible, it would therefore be realistic to say it is NOT a natural human characteristic, so it has to be generated in us by God Himself in us. Yesterday we looked at ‘kindness’ and certainly goodness encompasses kindness but goes way beyond, it is more of an attitude than an action. It means always living a life that is pleasing to God, because we must emulate God in order to demonstrate goodness. And it is not just the opposite of ‘badness’. If we could demonstrate goodness in every aspect of our lives, we would be perfect and whilst kindness can be demonstrated to our fellow humans, to demonstrate goodness is to always act in word and deed in accordance with what God wants. In that respect we could almost shorten it to “Godness”. 

This characteristic is probably the hardest to show but because it is a fundamental characteristic of God, we can only rely and ask Him daily, even hourly, to show us His way of dealing with life and always look for the good we can do or be firstly for God, (What would Jesus do?), and then for our fellow believers and then for any other man or woman. We will then enjoy the ‘goodness of God’.

Article written by Brian Preston, Elder @SFGH Church