Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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Living the Good Life
"I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you" (Romans 16:19-20).
It almost goes without saying that we all want to live the good life. So we work hard to achieve financial and business success, and every day we are bombarded with advertising that points us in the direction of the world's idea of the good life. If we will just use all the money that we make and even extend our buying power with credit, and buy this particular thing, or wear this, or eat or drink a certain brand of food or beverage, drive this manufacturer's vehicle, move to a bigger house in a better neighborhood, or whatever else, then we will have arrived. We are all supposed to get to some place of freedom and to live the perfect life. Somehow, for all the promises made, even when we get what we are told we need, we can't help but agree with the writer of Ecclesiastes that it is all empty and meaningless. It promises much but delivers little. And whatever we have is never enough. That will always be the end result of the world's promises. They come from Satan, the prince of the world, after all, and he is the father of lies (John 8:44).
What does the word say? Does the Bible have anything to say about the good life? Yes, it sure does. And not surprising, the good life begins with good things. We know that God will give us everything that we need and we know that he is good and that he desires our best. Scripture even says, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him" (Matthew 7:11). Romans 8:32 says that, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" God will give us much that is good, not only for our benefit, but so that we can share out of the good that we have received with others.
A second part of this, is that the good life is not only about having but doing. We are to do good. Galatians 6:10 says that, "as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." Like good boy scouts, we should be looking for good deeds that we can do to help others each and every day. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10).
In the scripture passage above, Paul encourages his fellow believers and us to "be wise about what is good." We are to school ourselves in what is good. The praise chorus says, "be excellent at what is good." We should always be looking for good things to give to others. What good thing can I do today? Make that our goal, to be always about doing good. It is what we were created to do and it reflects the image of the One in whose image we were created. God is good and so should we be.
We are to be innocent of evil. Avoid evil. Do not sin. That message is pretty simple. When we do slip up, thank God that there is forgiveness and cleansing and restoration (1 John 1:9), but may that become more and more rare and less the norm in our lives. We are to be innocent of evil, not experienced in it. Our very first parents were tempted with the thought of being like God, "knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5). That was a lie! God knows about evil, but he does not know evil! He has never done an evil thing in all eternity! And he does not want us to know evil. He wants us to know only good. "I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil" (Romans 16:19).
The good life is actually that, good! There is no evil in it. It is not a mixture of good and bad and the good outweighs the bad. God's good life is good only. Embrace the good. Flee evil. And when we do that, the God of peace — the God of everything is right and complete and together and how it should be with nothing missing and nothing broken, that kind of peace God! — will crush Satan under your feet! God will bring victory over Satan under your feet!
It is unfortunate that the little chorus that we sing does not include the last part of verse 20. "The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you." This is actually the key to the whole thing! Acts 10:38 says we know what happened, "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him." Jesus lived without sin (Hebrews 4:15) — he was innocent of evil — and he was wise about what is good. And God crushed Satan under his feet. And the same grace of God that was at work in him is available to you and me today.
We can live the good life! I can do all things through him!
"Be excellent at what is good. Be innocent of evil. And the God of peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet!"
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