A Virtuous Lifeნიმუში

Goodness

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Galatians 5:22-23 NLT

On one occasion, a young man came up to Jesus and asked this question:

… “Good Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “Only God is truly good.” Luke 18:18-19 NLT

God alone is truly good. He is holy, righteous, infinitely loving, and morally perfect. And we are not. We are sinful, flawed, selfish, and severely limited. But somehow and in some way, when we put our faith in Jesus and the Holy Spirit fills our lives, He makes us good.

What is impossible on our own is possible with Him. He gives us the power to become something we could never be on our own. And He shows us how to partner with Him in the process.

Guided by the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul wrote these words in his letter to the Ephesians:

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. Ephesians 5:1-2 NLT

We partner with the Holy Spirit to develop the virtue of goodness by doing our best to imitate God in everything we do. Why? Because He is our Father and we are His kids. As a loving Father, He wants to help us grow into all that we are meant to be. People of virtue who carry His goodness wherever we go.

And, we follow the example of Jesus, our wise and gracious older brother, the one who loved us enough to sacrifice Himself to save us. He showed us what a life overflowing with love looks like, and He has called us to love others the same way He has loved us.

How do we partner with the Holy Spirit to cultivate the fruit of goodness? By imitating God and following Jesus. And because they are both totally free from any impurity or sin, we’re meant to be too.

Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Ephesians 5:3-5 NLT

God’s standard is perfection. Before you let that overwhelm you, remember that God is loving and kind. He knows that every single one of us has failed to reach that standard. And so, as an act of mercy, He withholds the punishment we rightly deserve for our wrongdoing, and as an act of grace, He blesses us with the Holy Spirit, a relationship with Him, and the gift of eternal life, all of which we do not deserve.

We don’t imitate God in order to earn His favor. We do it because He loved us enough to forgive our sins and adopt us into His family. We avoid sin and pursue holiness as a response to the love God has extended to us.

But there are some who try to take advantage of God’s grace by using it as an excuse to keep sinning.

Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. Don’t participate in the things these people do. Ephesians 5:6-7 NLT

If our faith in Jesus is genuine, we will not abuse His grace and use it as an excuse to keep living in the darkness. Instead, we will do our best to trust, follow, and obey Him in all that we do.

For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.

Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. Ephesians 5:8-11 NLT

Because the light of Jesus is filling our lives, we don’t excuse sin; we confess sin. We thoughtfully and carefully do the things that honor God, and we ruthlessly eliminate sin from our lives and expose the darkness that once controlled us. To be clear, though, this is not something we are able to do on our own. We need the power of God to work in our lives. We need the Holy Spirit to help us and the grace of Jesus to heal us.

This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. 1 John 1:5-10 NLT

We partner with the Holy Spirit to cultivate the virtue of goodness in our lives by honestly confessing our sins and doing our best to imitate God in all we do.