Day 230- It's Not About Being Good!
📖Daily Reading
Luke 18
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Luke 18: 18-19
Once a religious leader asked Jesus this question: “Good teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “Only God is truly good. But to answer your question, you know the commandments: “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely. Honor your father and mother.”
The man replied, ‘I’ve obeyed all those commandments since I was young.”
When Jesus heard this answer, he said, “There is still one thing you haven’t done. Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
We humans are hard headed and still struggle with this today, we think we can ‘earn’ our way into heaven by being good. I know many people including myself who have professed to understand that we don’t have to earn our way into heaven, but yet we live as if we do and we hold each other to the same standards. It is just seems to be part of our human nature. No one can ‘be good’ not even Jesus. He goes on to say in v27 ‘what is impossible for people is possible with God.’ So if it isn’t about being good what is it about?
Well as we dig further into the fulness of chapter 18 we get some clues 🕵️♀️. We are called to be honest, self aware, humble, submitted to authority, vulnerable, consistent, persistent and child like. Earlier in the chapter we get a parable of a Pharisee prayer vs. a tax collector praying. The Pharisee’s prayer goes something like this “thank you that I am not a sinner like everyone else, I am good because I follow the rules and obey the commandments”. The tax collector’s prayer is something like this “forgive me and please have mercy on me. Jesus says the tax collector or ‘sinner’ is justified before God not the Pharisee. V14 “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humbled themselves will be exalted.”
Here is the paradox, the more you try to be ‘good’ the worse you are, because it is impossible, and you will exhaust yourself in the process. In order to be good and think of yourself as good you keep yourself busy obeying rules, you must be dishonest with yourself and judgmental of others. The less you try to be ‘good’ and just focus on being self aware, accepting your humanness while simultaneously trying to not allow it to be in charge of you, acknowledging God’s goodness, asking for forgiveness and mercy, being humble, honest and consistently persistently going to God in prayer, giving Him the credit, then you might actually achieve a small amount of ‘goodness’ with his help.
This concept of consistent persistence is also brought up again and bookends the chapter. At the beginning of the chapter we are given an example of a Judge and a persistent widow. We are told the judge has no fear of God or concern for his fellow human. The woman is seeking justice for herself in a situation with an enemy. She comes to him repeatedly demanding justice for herself. She is driving him nuts. He eventually agrees to help her just to get her to go away. Jesus tells us to learn a lesson from this unjust judge and that even he eventually did the right thing by this woman, so why should we not believe that God who is just will not do that for the people that he loves.
Cry out to him day and night, be consistent and persistent, this is similar to the message in chapter 11 to have shameless audacity with our prayers and petitions to God!
At the end of the chapter we have a similar theme in a story of a blind beggar in Jericho. He was sitting beside a road when he hears commotion, he asks what all the noise is and is told it is Jesus. So he began shouting “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” (V38). He was told to be quiet, but he wouldn’t he just kept shouting louder and louder. Until finally Jesus asks what he can do for him. He asks to see again and Jesus says ‘your faith has healed you’ and instantly the man could see. He began praising God and all the witnesses also began praising God.
In this final example, we see honesty, humility, consistent persistence, and also knowing who he was and who God was and his position under the authority, and giving God the credit. No mention of goodness or deserving. It is more about understanding who you stand under and who, where and what you find your identity in. If you find it in money, you will be sad like the rich man, even if you obey all the rules.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t have money, it just can’t have you. You hold your possessions, roles, relationships, titles, all of it loosely - they don’t define you. If God asks you to give them up, you willingly say ok whatever you say! Easier said than done for sure. But easier than trying to do the impossible of being ‘good’, that will not get you where you think it will…
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Have you spent much of your effort on trying to be good? Good in the eyes of others, aka a people pleaser? Good in the eyes of God, aka 'holier than thou'? How did this reflection cause you to reflect?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Luke 19
Coaching Opportunity
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