DO THIS! (PART 6)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

...but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.

1 Thessalonians 5:15b

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

We’re not to pay back a wrong for a wrong, removing the privilege for judgment for wrongdoing from the Lord.

This was the fifth “Do this!” command from the word of God found in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5.

Today, we see what we’re to do instead of adopting an attitude of revenge or retaliation:

...but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else (v.15b).

You remember from yesterday’s message that words from 1 Peter, chapter 3 call us to “repay evil with blessing” (v.9), an action that will result in a blessing inheritance. The Apostle Paul states this a different way in his letter to the Romans:

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (12:21).

These verses reinforce the matter of doing good, not just against those who would oppose us, but for “each other and everyone else”. But here’s the thing. This is easier said than done, right? Can a person be perfectly good to everyone all the time?

The answer is “no” but with a caveat.

For left to our own devices, we don’t have a chance to be good in the way God calls us to be. We’re imperfect people, sinners who fall short of the Lord’s glory (Romans 3:23).

Our Savior Jesus verified this when He said this:

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.”

Mark 10:17-18

On the surface, this seems a bit contradictory, right?

We know God came to earth in human form in the way of Jesus. It was what we call the Great Incarnation.  

So why would God, in the form of Jesus, say that He isn’t good and then turn around and say that only He is good?

At the heart of this encounter between Jesus and the young rich man was the matter of a person earning goodness on their own merit. The young man calls Jesus a good teacher as if Jesus earned the label of being good through His teaching, a notion that Jesus rebukes before reminding the man of the commandments that God had called His people to follow.

Pridefully unwilling to admit he was flawed in the matter of goodness, the young man claims to have not violated any of God’s commands since he was a boy. Jesus could have challenged him on this but instead, He proposed that the young man still needed to do one thing:

“One thing you lack,” He said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

The order was one that the young man was unwilling to carry out. He went away sad because “he had great wealth” and wasn’t willing to sacrifice what he had to follow Jesus and gain the “treasure in heaven”.

You see, being good means we need to surrender ourselves to the full will and way of God, the only One who is good. We need to sell out for Him because He sold out for us. It’s why He, in the form of Jesus, was willing to bear our sins in the worst suffering possible and die to ensure we could live. He willingly laid down His life for us as a good Shepherd lays down His for His sheep (John 10:1-18). Indeed, as a wonderful Christian song proclaims, He is our “good, good Father”, our perfectly good God.

Our sixth “Do this!” statement calls us to “always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else”. We can only do this if we allow that perfect goodness of our perfect God to come and dwell within, then share that goodness with others.

You may have heard it said, “God is good, all the time”. We can be too but only through Him.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com