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God is Good ...

Monday, Sept 15, 2014. What is good? What would be good? Yesterday we have been sitting in our garden over a coffee with friends, and someone started the discussion about what we would like to have or what we would like to be. What would be our dream? What would be good for us?

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Goodness …

It is interesting how different our dreams are. One of our friends said he wants to have 10 million euros. He would use one million to renovate his house, and then use the rest to start charity projects throughout the world. I realized that I do not have this kind of dreams - somehow my experience with money is that its usefulness is quite limited and it creates a lot of further problems and demands. So I do not consider it to be a good I would like to receive too much.

We also had the discussion what type of dreams might lead to good and to evil fruits in terms of actions, decisions or behaviour. The church knows the seven deadly sins, which include envy and greed. The logic here needs to be taken with care, but it is important. Envy can and will lead to a separation from God, if it starts to dominate our emotions and our decisions. The same applies to greed. We can counteract greed, by our decisions! In this example, envy is one of the roots. When it grows and starts to bear fruits, these fruits have a devastating effect.

Where do we find the source and root of goodness. When Jesus was called good by someone, he rebuked the guy and said that only God is good. That seems to be a key point, an important insight. It says first that God is good indeed, and it says that if you look carefully, only God is good, everyone else cannot be called “good” in the full sense. It is a deep insight of the apostles as well as many church fathers and reformators that humans are sinners, deep in their heart. That they need salvation, and that this salvation is the only way to transform them into something good - though this transformation is like a new life, renewing us completely, but also something which includes our whole life and will show itself only in growing mode during our lifetime.

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Source of Grace …

The source of all goodness is God himself. If I say this, I do not want to start a philosophical dicussion about the origin of good and evil. I rather want to point you to an experience. When you meet God, you encounter a goodness which is beyond all you have ever experienced before. He is a source of life, a source of truth, a source of love and reliability and trust, which is far beyond all what we know from humans around us. He is good, truly good!

We have been studying the psalms which talk about repentance: Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143. They formulate the insight that God is good, and the humans need to turn to him. God's purity is a purity of heart, a heart which does not know evil. Of course God knows evil, as he knows everything. But his heart is not driven by it, but by grace, truth, friendliness and love.

It is a key message of the gospel: God is good, and God is searching for you. God opens a door to you. You can get to know God, you are invited to enter his kingdom! He is so fantastic, that you will rejoice. Overwhelming joy is coming from the Lord. He is fantastic. His presence, his love and his guidance lead us into something for which we have a word: peace. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts

jn_en_2014_09_15.txt · Last modified: 2017/06/18 16:48 by 127.0.0.1