...Goodness...

Let's start this week with review. So far in our journey through the Fruit of the Spirit I've talked about five:

LOVE: agape, the unconditional love that God has for us, the love that I am to have for others, and also the love that I am to have for God. This is love expressed through action. Love comes from God, the ability to give and receive love is a gift from God.

JOY: chara, the source of joy or the reason for rejoicing. I can be joyful always and consider it pure joy when I face trials (1 Thessalonians 5/James 1) because chara is not a feeling but the source of that feeling. My source of joy is the unconditional love that I have from God.

PEACE: eirene, contentment and tranquility. I have peace with my circumstances no matter what they are because I have a reason to rejoice, which comes from the unconditional love I have from God.

PATIENCE: makpothumia, enduring hardship or trials without complain or retaliation. I can endure hardships, I can survive because I am content, I am content because of my reason to rejoice, the unconditional love from God.

KINDNESS: chrestotes, goodness expressed in action. This is doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Praying for my enemies, giving my enemy water when he is thirsty. I can do this because I endure the hardships without retaliating, because I am content in my source of joy, the unconditional love I have because I belong to God.

I said in the beginning that they all build upon each other. The foundation is God, and they all point to God, and with that we look at Goodness.

A few months ago when I really started to look at the fruit of the spirit this aspect really stood out to me. The word in Greek is agathosune (pronounced a-gath-o [long o]- soon- a [long a]) which translates as "goodness, virtue, generosity". When I walked through these with the teens I work with I would always look up the English definition for each word, this one gave some very interesting results.

good·ness
   –noun
1. the state or quality of being good.
2. moral excellence; virtue.
3. kindly feeling; kindness; generosity.
4. excellence of quality: goodness of workmanship.
5. the best part of anything; essence; strength.
6. a euphemism for god

A euphemism for god. I said that this one really stood out to me when I first started to look at the Fruit of the Spirit. As I prayed through them I tried to understand them, and when I got to goodness a verse came to my mind.

Mark 10.17-18, "As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, 'Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' And Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.'"

No one is good but God alone. The word used here is agathos, the root of goodness. The word good means excellence in being. The very core is perfect, absolutely perfect, no flaws, no impurities, completely perfect. This is only true of God.

Agathosune describes the moral quality which is described by agathos. Someone who is agathos does not just do something good, but they embody goodness. Their desires are characterized by goodness and they desire to both do and be morally excellent, perfect. Again this is only true of God.

But we are to strive to be like God, not to be God, but to become more like Him daily. To do this we strive to do the things of God and to do the things that God would do. We seek to love like He does, to serve like He does, and to care like He does.

We will never attain the moral excellence, the absolute perfection of God, it isn't possible, but we are to constantly strive after it. Paul talks about it in Philippians 3, "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

I am striving daily to become more like Christ. The prayer for goodness, is the prayer that my life will reflect God in all that I do. That people will look at me and not see me, but will see the Lord who lives through me.

"Help me to love like you loved, to serve like you served, to speak only words of truth. Help me to care like you cared for a world in despair, help me to love like you."
-Jonny Diaz, Love Like You Loved

Peace be with you