Good-By-Default?

Forgive my being forward, but this is something that’s been on my mind. How much good have you done lately? Now by good, I don’t mean “good-by-default”. I’m not talking about how much trouble have you stayed out of, or how many times have you kept from doing something that is impolite, impatient, or crass. I actually mean how much proactive good have you done? Have you been pulling your weight to make this world a better place? I’m not pointing fingers here. This is the question on my mind. What have I done lately? I always feel like not enough.

As a Christian, it can be confusing to balance doctrines such as “saved by grace” with “faith without works is dead”. It’s all in the frame of reference, you see. When we try to make ourselves “good-by-default”, we can never be made good. There will always be sin in our lives. This is where the saving grace of Jesus’ death and resurrection come in to play. We need Him to overcome the crappy things that we do on a daily basis. We’ll never be free of that while on this earth. That doesn’t give us a pass from self-improvement.

Rather, I argue that we improve ourselves the more we take the focus off of trying to be “good-by-default” and start being proactively good. The more we look for opportunities in the world to meet the needs of others, the more love we will feel for the people around us. See what I mean? The more we live in love, the less we act in our selfish, sinful nature. It’s not enough to just go through the motions every day. There are plenty of needs, both big and little, all around us. That’s what Jesus did while He was here. He did not sin because He was so focused on others that His “self” never got in the way. As God, He was fully capable of doing that perfectly.

We must protect the people. That is our job. We are to mend broken hearts, be there when our friends need our help, defend the defenseless, and other such activities. Now, I’m not advocating for social welfare programs, and such. That’s pawning off our work on the government. When is the Church going to start acting like the Church and take care of these things ourselves? We gave away THE thing that drew people to us. It wasn’t the music, the sermons, or the pot luck dinners. It was being proactively good in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and in the world. We gave that responsibility away to the government. Now everybody turns to the government, and expects money from them to fix whatever ills have befallen them. The government should never be the first place people turn for help. It should be us. When your community floods, when violent crime rises, when the local factory goes under, when children a half a world away are being forced into an army and made to kill their own families, when your child has a bad day… it’s up to us to be the first ones that these people turn to. If we’re not, we’ve lost our salt. We’ve become flavorless, and fit only to be trampled underfoot. We’ve become, at best, a pretentious social club no better than the Elks, the local knitting club, or Ducks Unlimited. But we are supposed to be the church of Jesus Christ! The living God affecting our world through us! Can you grasp how big a statement that is? I barely can, myself.

We, in the church, are so worried about not lying, staying pure, not cursing, etc. that we forget about others. I contend that the more proactive good we do for others, the less we will do selfish things that cause sin. Because then we are entering the kind of life that the Holy Spirit is urging us into; one He can use. So, I urge you in all faithfulness to not fall asleep. Do not become discouraged. Rather just find a need and fill it. Be proactively good. I am willing to guess that there are few American communities without churches in them, and even fewer without church-goers in them. Think of the difference we all could make! Start at home, start down the street, start anywhere. Just start! I know that we’re all busy. But you know, that can be a trap for us. It becomes an excuse, but not one that I think will sit well when we finally see God face to face. There, all excuses end. Our lives are laid out in black and white before yourself and God. What will you answer Him? You can’t get a doctor’s note to get excused from life, like you could from swimming lessons with an ear infection. The time has come. Humanity is on the brink of some place we can not come back from. Be strong. Finish well, my friends. Somebody out there is counting on your selflessness. Don’t let them down.