FOR GOODNESS' SAKE?

Deuteronomy 9:1-10:22; Luke 8:4-21; Psalm 69:19-36; Proverbs 12:2-3

“You must recognize that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land because you are good, for you are not—you are a stubborn people.”

“They see what I do, but they don’t really see; they hear what I say, but they don’t understand.”

 “The humble will see their God at work and be glad.”

God has done a lot of wonderful things. He’s made a truly beautiful world and populated it with some pretty amazing creatures, including humans. He’s blessed us with families, and their families. He’s given us the opportunity to make friends, and provided us a fellowship – the Church – to help guide us back to Him when we stray. We have a Spirit who leads us, and a Savior who died so we would never have to be apart from our Creator. And we did not deserve a single bit of it. Our very being is due exclusively to grace.

Yet, I still have the gall to think that, when I am blessed, it has something to do with my own effort. I, too, see Christ’s work, but don’t understand. I keep working to try to earn (or, at least, be worthy of) the blessings. Bad mistake. As soon as I insert myself into the equation of grace, I make it a calculation and rob the blessing of its beauty. So, of course, I start to miss the blessing altogether. It isn’t so tough to figure out. The harder I work for blessing, the more I work myself out of a state of grace and into a mentality of entitlement. Entitlement gives rise to selfishness, and pretty soon, God gets left out of the mix altogether.

Scripture is clear we cannot earn anything on a spiritual level. It’s not that the Holy Spirit has anything against work. He doesn’t. Rather, from a spiritual perspective, work should be the means by which we realize and utilize our blessings, not the way we earn them. What a difference that kind of perspective makes! My youngest son, for example, is seriously considering dedicating a major part of his life to serving the underprivileged. He realizes fully how blessed he has been, how generous Christ has been to our entire family. But he wants to use those blessings, share them with others, instead of trying to hoard his gifts for himself or those already in his comfort zone. I’ll admit that’s a little unsettling for Dad to think about, because I worry about how he will adapt to the lifestyle change his choice will require. But my son is focused on a greater good and a greater reward: the privilege of actually seeing the Spirit of God work through him to touch the lives of those less fortunate. He’s banking eternal investments, and setting an example his old man could learn from. However unsettling, I could not be prouder of the road he is choosing.

When will we learn that true goodness only works from the inside out? As long as goodness is something we are trying to earn or achieve, we will never fully realize it. If we allow the Holy Spirit to enter into the process, though, goodness is the blessed results of Christ working through us.  My role is to stay positioned so the Spirit has the chance to work, and then to follow its leading and be obedient to its call in carrying out His will in tangible ways.

Faith without works is dead, but only because it is a blind faith, one that never experiences the raw power of God to sustain and triumph. A person cannot let the Spirit work through them and ever be anything but more alive. That’s a very good thing. The Spirit does not come for goodness’ sake, though. He comes for love, so we might live in love.