OVERCOMERS With the Fruit of the SpiritSample

 Goodness: Virtue Unleashed  

  Goodness is intentional, no one is good by default. We choose right over wrong, we resist evil and decide for good, we actively set our hearts on things above while we walk through the world below — all by His Spirit. And as the Spirit’s fruit emerges and grows through our lives, His goodness will glorify God and cement His reality to the world around us. We live and work and aspire like all mortals on the planet, eating and dressing in fashion, enjoying the good things that men and women do like the worldlings. But we are not worldlings. 

The children of God don’t use outward indications, such as fashions, possessions, or status to express God’s goodness, but walk the streets like any other person. As we do however, we allow the Holy Spirit to express His goodness just as Jesus did and encouraged us to do in Matthew 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” 

The goodness of the Spirit flourishes as a life full of virtue in a vice infested world that glorifies selfishness and corruption in every way from details of fashion, to depraved entertainment, to a distorted meaning of family, and everything in between. His goodness shines like a light where darkness, pretense, flattery, and self-absorption are celebrated as moral assets.  

For a world whose idea of goodness resonates from their own dark and sinful hearts, God’s goodness blazes like a beacon of hope from our lives as it grows in us as a fruit of the Spirit. And just as He has called us by “His own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3), we can call others through His goodness flourishing through us. That is why in 2 Thessalonians 1:11, the Apostle Paul prayed that, “…by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.” Amen!