What is the hope/desire/goal of the believer? Is it not to
be good or be holy? To be worthy?
There are two distinct paths one can take to accomplish this
‘goodness.’ The path most have been taught and practice is to minimize sinful
behavior through making ‘good’ or godly choices that will hopefully be pleasing
to God. In this path, the historical Jesus is the model to be studied and
followed. However, the focus is on sin and how to manage it. There is a
constant comparison of Jesus’ lack of sin to our struggle with sin. The
distance between the two scream at us, “You are bad!”
This path can produce moments when it seems we are close to
being good enough, but there are mostly moments of disappointment because the
goal is still very far away.
Where does the desire to be good come from? Do sinful,
unholy people want to be good? I don’t think so. Evil is not good, it is the
opposite. Evil can want to be comfortable, peaceful, happy, content, but not
good. Evil is repelled by good. The desire to be good comes from a place of
goodness.
The smaller, less traveled path, is the way of faith. This
path of faith is walking without dependence on physical sight, hearing,
touching, smelling and tasting. If you could gain goodness through your
physical experience, you would not need faith, just more commitment, more
energy, more application, etc.
Faith is dependence on the unseen, not the seen. Faith is
moving out in life knowing and believing something to be true without the
physical evidence. Don’t misunderstand, you can invest your faith in lies, but
the results will be disastrous. When we understand who we are in Christ, the
truth that we are intrinsically good, we don’t have to ‘try’ to be good. God
has declared it to be so.
When we walk this path of faith, we are believing we are
good, and then practicing our goodness. As with anything we practice in this
life, we will make mistakes – not because we want to. Those mistakes don’t
speak to our goodness, but only to the fact that we are truly practicing.
Which path are you walking? Are you struggling with trying
to be good? Or, are you practicing your goodness by faith?
