Your Goodness

Colossians 1:21-23

I am a salesperson, and most of my life was spent developing the art of selling.  I’ve read many a self help books, some you may have read, “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie, “Ziglar on Selling” by Zig Ziglar, Becoming a Person of Influence” by John Maxwell and Jim Dornan, “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, and that is just the short list.  All of these are good reading, all of them will pump you up and if applied many of them will help you.  As I was giving the short list, this thought came into my mind, the world system is telling us we are good but we are not great, to be great will require something more of you.  And we may not tell anyone, in fact we may not even admit it to ourselves, but we all want someone to think we are great.  If you do not believe me, watch Pro-football and see the number of times a grown man looks at the camera after making a touch down and this comes from his mouth; “Hi mom”.

Just because you ask Jesus Christ into your life has not changed the desire or need to be seen as important or to strive for greatness.  I’ve come up with this theory, that most Christians have little or no understanding of whom they are.  It comes from either ignorance or unbelief, and maybe both.  Have you heard someone proclaim this testimony; I grew-up in church, I was a good person, I never did anything bad, I was not like (Bob Rice), you could add the name of any poser such as I, or the guy who did drugs, or beat his wife, or was a drunk.  You were good, but have you stopped to ask this question; whose scale is being used to do the measurement?

Could this be the reason that our Churches are without power, we have too many good people trying to earn greatness in the kingdom of God.  We have, you might say, “put our latter on the wrong wall”, we are not in agreement with God.   Jesus tells us of such a person, we call him a rich young man, and one day he came to Jesus and knelt before him and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good?  No one is good except God alone.  You know the commandments; ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’”  And he said to him, “Teacher all these I have kept from my youth.”  (I’ve always been good)  And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”   (Mark 10:17-22)

Did you see action of our Lord, He loved him and being God knew that the young man had idols that were more important to him than having a relationship with Jesus.  This young rich man was much like many in the church; he wanted God to meet his terms.  We are told he went away disheartened and sorrowful, because he had great possessions.

This is what the Bible states in Colossians 1:21-23, “And you, (yes you) who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if in deed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”  Please, do not let your goodness keep you from having a personal relationship with Jesus, as did this rich young man.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice