Pursuing God with Gene Appel

Growing in goodness necessitates that you diligently use all that you do, all that you say, and all that you are, to bring glory to your Heavenly Father.

The Apostle Paul says that the good works God wants us to accomplish were “prepared in advance for us to do.” God is not leaving anything to chance here. Not only does God define goodness and forgive us for falling short of His goodness, and not only does God give us the power to do good works, but He also prepares and provides the opportunity ahead of time.

We don’t have the power to do good on our own. We are not intrinsically good. Goodness does not just naturally flow out of us. The power to do good comes from God alone and it comes in the context of our own faults and brokenness.

Apart from God, our natural tendency is to look to find someone who is worse than us and compare ourselves to them. On that basis, we begin thinking, “Hey, I am a pretty good person!” However, Jesus says in Mark 10:18, “No one is good, except God alone.” The Psalmist writes, “For the Lord is good, and His love endures forever.” Psalm 100:5

Goodness is consistently doing what you know is right. When you are led by the Holy Spirit to do what is good, you have a decision to make. Are your actions going to match up consistently with biblical values, or are you going to do your own thing? For most of us, the struggle is between goodness and selfishness—between our own self-interest and a genuine interest in others.

Our acts of kindness help the seeds of the Gospel take root. It is God’s kindness towards us that leads to repentance. What amazing graciousness and kindness our Heavenly Father has extended to so many of us....who don’t even deserve it. And now that we’re followers of Jesus, doesn’t He continue to treat us so much better than we deserve? Let’s allow our kindness to flow out of us, treating others as better than they deserve.

Jesus taught that kindness is expressed when we go above and beyond what is required of us. Kindness always costs us something. There’s always a price tag.

Here’s how the Holy Spirit works in us - When we are intentional about following in the footsteps of Jesus, the Holy Spirit nudges us to demonstrate God-like kindness to people in our lives. He nudges us to respond spontaneously. The doors of opportunity to show kindness don’t stay open indefinitely. So like David, you’ve got to seize the moment.

As we learned yesterday, out of the blue David has this burst of sensitivity and says, “Is there anyone still left in Jonathan’s family that I can show kindness to?” Ask the Lord to help you to be more sensitive to the needs around you…then look for ways to perform some meaningful acts of kindness to lift people up.

As we look deeply into the life of King David, we find a tough guy who was also remarkably kind. He showed mercy and grace to a crippled man who was a descendent of Saul, the man who wanted to kill him!