Mark 10:18 - What is Goodness? And Are We?

Mark 10:18 “'Why do you call me good?' Jesus answered. ' No one is good – except God alone.'”

I have been thinking on goodness this past week. Often you hear someone ask some variation on “I'm a good person, so why would God let X happen to me?”  We seem to have misunderstood the whole concept of “good!”  We tend to think in terms of ourselves, rating ourselves on an insubstantial scale of goodness, typically where Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot or some other genocidal, mass murdering person is “evil” and Mother Theresa, Albert Schweitzer, the Dalai Lama, the pope, or some very giving and caring person is “very good” and somehow we fall on the line between them as “good.”  We give money to charity, we don't abuse children, we don't speed... much, we teach Sunday School, we volunteer, we are “good” (maybe not as good as so-and-so, but definitely better than whats-his-name down the road).

The thing is, “Good” isn't really relative, not really. Dictionary.com defines Good (adj.) as: morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious. Are we really Good? Are we morally excellent? Virtuous? Righteous? Pious? Are we really? Just in case we think we really are good Romans 3:12 reminds us that “All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”  To be good is something we all want to be. To be good at something is to be skillful at it, not making mistakes. To be a good person is to live with moral fortitude in kindness, reliable in everything we do. To be good enough for something we must be “satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree.” And God tells us that to be good enough to enter heaven, we must be perfect: that any fault, error, mistake, sin, stain, lapse in judgment, or blemish is not acceptable. We as humans cannot be good enough on our own.

God has an answer for us though. We can be good. We can be good enough. He, in His tremendous love for us worked out a way that we could be covered by HIS righteousness, His excellence, and His perfectness. In essence it is like a father letting his child stand on his feet so that the kid's head is just over the “You must be this tall” line at an amusement park.

God's love is so great that He shares His goodness with us. He knows what its like for us, He has shared our burdens longer than we could have ever known or imagined. He knows what trials we face, and what problems we experience. He already knows the mistakes we will make in the future too, and He also already knows how He will help us survive or overcome them.  This week then, lets focus on letting God direct us and teach us to be better people, to let God's goodness flow through us and out of us into others. Lets walk our lives in such a way that God is pleased by us and doesn't have to correct. Lets also stop making excuses for our faults and remember to ask His forgiveness and guidance. His love is enough and His goodness is overwhelming.

Psalms 100:5 “For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”