DAILY DEVOTIONAL
June 10 — Goodness, the quiet default
A spoken reading of this is being recorded — it will appear here soon.
June 10 — Goodness, the Quiet Default
"And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." — Mark 10:18 (KJV)
The rich young man calls Jesus "good teacher." Jesus pushes the word back at him. Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. The question is not a denial. It is a sharpening. Goodness has one source.
When we say someone is a "good person," we are usually describing an accumulation of habits. They show up. They tell the truth. They don't take more than their share. These are good habits and we should want them. They are not what the Bible means by goodness. Biblical goodness is participation in God's own character. It is not earned and not generated. It is given to us through union with Christ and grown in us by the Spirit.
That distinction is freeing. We do not have to keep proving we are good. We are not. We are people who have been given the goodness of Another, and the Spirit is the one growing it in us — slowly, often invisibly, sometimes through failures.
In a household, this looks like dropping the performance. We can stop trying to look good in front of our children. We can apologize to them when we are wrong, because we are not the source. We can lower the volume of our own self-justification and admit that we, too, are being formed.
Today: if you owe someone in your house an apology, give it. Two sentences. No qualifier. Then go on with the day.
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever." — Psalm 23:6 (KJV)
May the Lord bless you and keep you.