Welcome!
Date: Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Today: The cost of being good
Passage: Luke 18:18-19 NIV
18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.
Is it a costly thing to be just a good person?
It could be; it all depends on how you define “good”
This man called Jesus, “good teacher”. Jesus asked, “Why do you call me good?”
I’m sure, that puzzles some of us; we would ask, “Why not?”
Jesus is definitely good
But look at the next thing Jesus says – even more complex:
“No one is good—except God alone.”
This was Jesus answering a rich young man who wanted to get eternal life
All he wanted was to get any good stuff he can have from Jesus. He didn’t mind honoring Jesus and even giving him a million dollar check, I would say
But he got to the wrong person. The definition of “good” was different for Jesus, than what this man understood
When Jesus says “good”, he is talking about that which is divine, not the kind of “good” that we mean, when we say “good food” or something like that
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.(Eph 2:10, NIV-emphasis added)
Heaven’s vocabulary is different from ours
What we call death, Jesus calls sleep
We better get used to heaven’s vocabulary, if we have plans to go there
When we go to a foreign country, it helps a lot to know few words in their language
We know about the “good Samaritan”. It was not God, but we who called him good. Jesus was only trying to say, who our neighbor was
This man, whom we call “good Samaritan”, had to sacrifice so much, so that we could call him “good”. He cancelled his journey, got off his “car” and took this person to the hospital and admitted him there. He spoke to the Medical Director and also agreed to pay the bills!
After he did so much, all that we qualified him was to call him ”good Samaritan”
In that case, none of us deserve to be called “good”. Will you and I do something like that?
For Jesus, “good” means doing the works of God;
God is good; no one else really qualifies to be called “good”
The good thing that God does is to destroy the works of the devil:
“Saving the sinner, healing the sick, bind the broken-hearted, love the poor, needy, fatherless, widows, elderly,………”
Being good is being Godly; there is a cost involved. There is sacrifice involved
But it pays to be good. One day, the good people who suffered for their good master will hear “good and faithful child” in front of multitudes
In some countries, people are slaughtered like animals, for being good and Godly; you know that
What “good” can we do today? Share the good word with somebody. Do something really good. We may need to get off our comfort and go out of the way to do that
Pray for those persecuting the good people, that they will ultimately leave their bad and become good
God bless you; be good
BG
Prayer: Lord Jesus, you are definitely good. Help me to become one. Amen