Goodness

      We all know what goodness it, but it's a little hard to define it. My Webster's Dictionary calls it "virtue" and "kindness."  A larger dictionary adds these synonyms: "moral excellence, kindly feeling, generosity, integrity, honesty, and uprightness."  Another word for "uprightness" could be "righteousness."  How would you describe "goodness"?  I think it's a heart that is right with God and a life that is lived in obedience to His will as spelled out in Scripture.

      The model for goodness is the character of God.  He is too good to do any evil.  From Him emanates love, mercy, grace, kindness, generosity.  From a good person emanate acts of love, kindness, and generosity.  Matthew 7:17 tells us that a good tree brings forth good fruit.

      When we accept Christ as Savior, God gives us a new nature, His nature, in the form of the Holy Spirit Who comes to live within us. 

And when God's Holy spirit controls our lives, He will produce righteous acts, kind deeds, moral behavior,  the fruit of goodness, in and through our lives.

      Philippians 2:5 exhorts us,  "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus."  I like Andrew Murray's comment which is a summary of goodness.  He said,  "The mind of Christ must be my mind, my disposition, and my life."

Father, You have told us that "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he."  May we have Your mind and Your heart so that the Holy Spirit will produce the fruit of goodness in and through our lives.  Amen.