What Is Good?

Trust in the LORD and do good… Psalm 37:3

The whole meaning of life is summed up in that short verse: Trust in the Lord and do good. In fact, those two commands are intertwined to such an extent that we cannot have one without the other. 

If we really trust in the Lord—with all that implies---then He controls us. Trust results in setting aside our selfish will and allowing the Holy Spirit to produce His fruit, His character, and His deeds in us (Gal. 5:22). When we trust in the Lord, we will do good things. However, when we try to do good without trusting in the Lord, our good deeds are like filthy rags to God (Is.64:6). What may look good on the outside is motivated by how it makes us feel and what others think of us. Sometimes our good deeds are attempts to appease God.

So what does it mean to do good? The Lord told King Saul that “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22). So the kind of “good” God desires is our obedience to His commands. Often we try to substitute a good deed in place of simple obedience to His word. We imagine that God is pacified with our helping a neighbor or serving in the soup kitchen and won’t notice that we are living in sexual immorality, drunkenness, or deceit. But to truly trust in the Lord is to desire is to please Him in everything. Only when we obey Him from a heart of love can we offer good deeds that are acceptable to Him. Only when we trust in the Lord can we truly do good.

Have you tried to substitute your ideas of good for simple obedience to God’s word? Only God can define goodness, and it starts with obeying what He has already told us to do.

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Time to Turn Around

“Repent” is a Bible word meaning a change of mind that results in a change of action. Imagine that you are driving west and halfway to your destination, you remember that you left your wallet at home. You must have it for what you are about to do. So as soon as possible, you find a turnaround and head in the opposite direction. You were heading west, thinking everything was fine. But something changed. You gained sudden understanding that caused you to make an abrupt change and head east. There may be detours and flat tires, but you are still headed in the right direction. 

That is a picture of repentance. 

When we come to the understanding that God is holy and we are not, we realize we have a big problem. We cannot keep going the way we are going and end up where we want to be. We must repent. We must have a change of mind about who is right and who should run our lives. It used to be Self. But when we repent, we agree with God about our sin and His right to be in charge of our lives. That change of mind results in a change of action. We cannot repent and continue to follow the same sin path we were on before, just as you cannot go east and west at the same time. Repentance changes our direction.

God offers a full pardon to everyone who comes to Him in repentance (Luke 5:32). Have you repented of your sin and allowed God to change your direction?

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Stop Looking at the Ground

Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb. Mark 16:2 

The best day of their lives began as the worst day of their lives. Imagine the sleepless night Jesus’ friends and family had! They had just witnessed the bloodiest, most unjust murder in history. When their friend, son, and Master died, He took their dreams with Him. When they started toward the tomb that morning to anoint Jesus’ body, the women could only look at the ground, agonizing over problems. How would they roll away the huge stone? How would they access Jesus’ body with all those guards there? And then they looked up. Their questions were human-sized; the answers were God-sized.

When we wake each morning, we are often greeted with pounding questions: How will I…? What will happen…? What if…? As we move toward our day, we are usually looking at the ground, limited by our own understanding. But when we choose to look up and focus on God’s unlimited resources, no situation is hopeless. When we begin the day on our knees, God can show us our life from His perspective. Problems have purpose. Our questions are human-sized; the answers are God-sized.

Are you looking at the ground? What if you started looking up and expecting God-sized answers?

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Hope Behind a Rock

Then he rolled a stone in front of the entrance. Mark 15:46

Boom! Finished. The End. A giant boulder sealing a tomb symbolized the finality of death. To the Roman executioners, it meant that no zealous disciple could tamper with the body. To Jesus’ watching friends and family, it meant the end of a beautiful dream. The end of hope. Staring at that stone, they had no choice but to accept that their Master, Teacher, and Friend was gone. They had waited and prayed, silently pleading that He might come off the cross, call down some angels, or vindicate Himself. But He hadn’t, and now it was too late. The future He had inspired them to pursue was shattered. Hope had been defeated and now lay dead, hidden behind a gigantic rock.

Have you heard the clunk of a giant boulder sealing off your hope? You thought you understood your life, where it was going, what God was doing, and then boom! You get a diagnosis. Divorce papers are filed. You flunk out of school or don’t get accepted in the first place. It feels so final. You see no way out, no future. The empty tomb is a reminder that God’s way does not include dead ends, only turns. When our faith is in Him, no boulder is big enough to keep us from His plan.

Boulders that appear to seal off hope
 are merely pebbles to God  

(Isaiah 46:9-11).

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Are You a Nobody?

So Naaman told the king what the young girl from Israel had said. (2 Kings 5:4)

All we know about this girl is this vague reference: a young girl from Israel. She is never named. She's a nobody. A kid. A servant. No work was less important, no title lower. Yet, God used her right where she was. He considered her very important to the work He was preparing to do.
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Do you feel like that? A nobody? Most of us are called to obscurity. We’ll never have our names in People Magazine or our faces celebrated by the world. We can feel overlooked and unimportant. But what if God’s plan for your life requires you to be a nobody in the world’s eyes? 
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This “young girl from Israel” was no one’s idea of success, yet God had placed her right where he wanted her. She was important in God’s plan, and she was ready when He gave her a job to do—even though no one would ever know her name.
  
Are you called to obscurity? God can use you even though nobody knows your name. 
He know it.

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Where's the Piccolo?

A guest conductor was leading a symphony orchestra in rehearsal the night before a big concert. As the music swelled to a heart-stopping crescendo, the conductor suddenly held up a hand and shouted, “Stop!”  

The musicians silenced their instruments and stared at the red-faced conductor. “Where’s the piccolo?” he shouted. 

One frightened piccolo player held up a shaky hand. “Sorry sir,” he mumbled. “I didn’t think you’d notice. All these other instruments…” 

“Notice?” The conductor’s stern gaze swept the group. “When this piece calls for a piccolo, I want to hear a piccolo.”

A symphony requires the participation of every musician. A piccolo is a tiny instrument, yet to the ears of the conductor, its music was irreplaceable. Your part in God’s work may seem insignificant to you, but to the ears of your Conductor, you are irreplaceable. No one else can create the music you bring to the ears of your Heavenly Father. He gave you a sound that can perfectly harmonize with the sounds of His other children.

When He calls for you, He wants to hear you playing.

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Under Which God?

 
“One nation under God.” 

If an alien from another planet was dropped into the middle of the U.S. and shown this motto, what would he conclude? If he was asked to observe our way of life and then identify that God under which our nation professes to live, what would he say?

He might check the surfing histories of our iphones and laptops, tally the number of dollars spent on porn, prostitution, and sensually-geared businesses, and conclude that our god is Sex. Or he might notice the rapidly increasing number of temples where people bring their wealth, offer it to the machines and dealers in hopes of receiving more in return, and decide we worship Money. He might pause thoughtfully to consider the massive stadiums where the faithful gather to offer passionate worship to sports teams or rock stars. He could be shown the number of mind-altering substances purchased and consumed by our citizens, the sacrifices and excuses that millions make to serve those cravings, and be confident that we worship and serve the Duality of Drugs & Alcohol. Or perhaps the plethora of tabloids shouting Hollywood’s latest scandal could lead him to wonder if America has a Mecca on the west coast.

He may even take a trip through our churches and be impressed with the vast number of Bibles on our shelves. But when he compares its truths with our modern version of a cool, inoffensive Jesus and a passive, weak God who changes His mind to accommodate current sensitivities, he would only shake his head. The Jesus being preached is not one who would have ever been crucified, and those professing His name don’t seem to agree with His Book. So that can’t be Him. He may come close to being right when he sees the gold-domed mosques sprouting up everywhere and he may announce that our god is soon to be Allah.

There is a great deal of worship taking place in this nation and our friendly alien would have much to consider. We are indeed one nation under God, but which god? 

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