UNTIL YOU BELIEVE that being good is not the goal for the life you really want, you will be in bondage.
Certainly, you will suffer fewer consequences if you act “right” and the fear of natural consequences is most likely the primary motive behind “being good”, but as a strategy for life, it will never lead you to peace.
Or rest.
It is a counterintuitive truth, I know, but so is much about what Jesus taught. Let me explain.
If you try to be good, you will look good out there and you may fit in. Or feel like a fraud.
If you work hard, the boss will say you are good, and you may feel significant and secure. Or feel like a hamster in a wheel.
If you are over-responsible for others, you will definitely be called good, even an angel on earth, and you may feel loved. Or used.
However, if you expect to get your needs met out there, you become a slave to “being good”. And doing.
I didn’t understand this truth so the day after my encounter with Jesus and realizing I had lost my Bible—probably a decade before—I bought a new one. Reading it became the most important thing on my busy agenda because I needed to know why he loved me after revealing to me that he knew the real me.
He also said he wanted my life, but he left before he explained what that meant. All I knew is that I had some work to do, and as a typical Type-A personality, I was going to be ready for his return, which I expected in the next week or so.
Like other business ventures, I was intent on winning in this one. So, I focused on what seemed to be important to him, which was presented in his case against me—why I called myself Christian. Naturally, I focused on being good.
Using my best thinking, I enrolled in a Bible study at the church so I could learn how to be a Christian in which God could be proud to call me his own. Gaining knowledge would certainly help me win. And become a good person.
Then I would be prepared for whatever it was that he wanted my life for. (Not to mention how good I would look to him.)
When I reflect back to those early days and years of trying so hard to be good and do right, I stand in amazement at how God got me here, where I am telling you that being good is not the goal.
It is nothing short of a miracle considering what God had to work with. With the use of my faulty beliefs and counterfeit strategies—he didn’t give me a frontal lobotomy the night I met him—I wasted no time in becoming a bona fide church lady. (And they’re some of the best people on the planet, right?)
I immensely enjoyed the experience at the church. It was full of good people.
If you are looking for the best people, you can also find them at the synagogue, the temple, and the mosque. For when you find devout believers of any faith, you will be among those who will do good, as I learned to do in studying my Bible.
The strategy of any religion is about following God’s laws.
In a short amount of time, by following God’s laws, and not the desire to do as I pleased, my life changed. For the better.
And because of the law of sowing and reaping, I was winning. I knew love, respect, significance, and security like never before, and my life was no longer like the ups and downs of a roller coaster out of control.
Somehow, along the journey, I had lost the desire for my favorite sins. I taught Sunday school, did other volunteer work inside and outside the church, and led Bible studies in my home. I fully enjoyed the benefits of being good.
I was a testimony of the scripture that says, ‘God is able to do far more than I would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond my highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes. (Ephesians 3:20)
This is to say that the Lord changed the direction of my life and gave me much more than I ever expected to achieve.
What do you suppose happens when a human being has more than they ever expected to achieve in life, and he or she is confident that God is well pleased with his or her behavior; when he or she believes that God has shown favor because he or she is now among the devout believers and being what he or she thinks is a good person?
Let me just say that it is lonely on the self-righteous mountaintop where we secretly judge those below our knowledge of right and wrong and our good behavior. The air is thin and there’s not much room to move about. One misstep, like the stress of a life turned upside down, and the fall to the bottom is long.
And hard.
And quite frightening.
You can be imprisoned by “doing good and right” as easily as you can by “doing bad and wrong”.
Death cares not where you spend your time.
We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.–2 Corinthians 3:4-6(NLT)
What I know now is that God didn’t ask me to follow a religion. That was my idea.
What I know now is that religion sets us up to fail. Even the religion of Christianity.
So, if being good is not the best strategy for a successful life, what is it? If you read what Jesus said you’ll know it is about love. Matthew 22:36-40
If you read in any of the gospels about his interactions with the “church people” over 2000 years ago, you will see that they were using the same counterfeit strategy of being good, based on the same faulty belief that we can earn God’s favor and blessings.
“I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.
“But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!—Jesus (Revelation 2:2-4 NLT)
Matthew 5:20,Romans 7:15-23,Luke 11:37-52, 1 John 2:15-17, Matthew 11:28-30, John 13:35, Matthew 19:21, John 8:31-32
As always, it is my intent and hope that my words may encourage you wherever you are in your journey.
Please share your thoughts in the comments below or go to the group tab above to share your own experience. It only takes a minute of your time and your words may help others.
If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.–Jesus(Mark 4:23)
