Cultivating Goodness
There is no one who is good, except by the Spirit. Goodness
(Greek = agathosyne), as described in
Galatians 5:22, is something you become by continually
acting with goodness towards to another. You cannot be good in a vacuum. To be
good, we must have an opportunity to practice goodness with others.
It’s much harder this way, isn’t it? When no one is around
to irritate me or get in my way, I find it easy to exhibit goodness. It’s when my
Man other people are around, the deficit I have in goodness is apparent. The
beautiful truth is we are not expected to have goodness apart from the Spirit.
The degree to which I am good is the degree to which the Holy Spirit is at work
in my life to change my heart. Change the heart, and the behaviour changes.
Goodness, as well as any other aspect of the fruit of the
Spirit, isn’t produced by striving. Have you ever noticed a fruit tree strive
to make fruit? Jesus said if we stay connected to the trunk of the tree (vine),
we will bear fruit, period.
We still bear responsibility to practice goodness, when and
where we have opportunities. We always have a choice but the one thing I
remembered from physics class applies here: a body in motion stays in motion
and a body at rest, stays at rest. We need to [continually] do good, thereby
making it part of our character. We need to position ourselves for the fruit of
goodness to be cultivated. Keep the momentum going, stay connected and watch
goodness flourish.
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