Thurs Inspiration

Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt

The last requirement of goodness is “walk humbly with your God.” That is the real source and the real secret of goodness – walking humbly with your God.

Notice if you leave God out of this equation then you can’t be good. The truly good person will have a walk with God, because goodness is the work of God. What God is telling us is this – being good comes before doing good.

There are some who say that goodness is a matter of the head. They say if you know what is good then you will do what is good. We know that is not true. Paul said in Romans 7:19,

“For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
Contrary to what we are told in so many quarters, education does not make people good. You can educate a thief, but all you will wind up with is a real smart thief.

Then there are those who say goodness is a matter of the hands. They say goodness is simply treating others good. If you do good to others then you must be a good person. That is not true. There are people who do good who are not good. A homicide bomber may hug his mother and kiss her and bless her and tell her he loves her before he goes out the door to kill innocent people. He did good by his mother, but that didn’t make him good.

We learn here that goodness is a matter of the heart. It comes from walking with God. Jesus said in Matthew 12:35,

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”

You will never understand what goodness is or how goodness comes or how you can be good if you don’t get this down. Goodness is not a matter of what you know or what you do; it is a matter of what you are. Again, goodness is not a deed that you do, but it is a fruit that you bear.