The Empty Striving Of Being Good Person

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 NASBS

The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. [14] For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.

When I have read this scripture, its so clear to me what our purpose is on this earth.  

I said in a previous post, the purpose of my life, actually all of our lives, is for Him! It’s not for my comfort, my goals, my happiness; and it‘s not in being a “good person” or helping anyone. It’s for His will, His glory and His kingdom.

How is it that something so simple, becomes so complicated? It took me 29 years to figure out that my whole life is all about: God the Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Sin has infiltrated into us so deeply that we think finding our purpose is all about ourselves and what makes us happy. It’s a silly thing to think that we ourselves are at the center of our purpose, not God. This has been the mindset of myself, as well as many others. 

However, some people might have a more selfless mindset, but it’s still not about God. 

Sometimes I think people do realize that their purpose is bigger than themselves and their happiness, but it still gets lost in striving for world peace, striving in helping the poor or saving the planet; and on a smaller scale, striving to help your family, friends, and your church.  Or if you’re in health care, striving to save a life. 

There are so many issues in this world on a big scale and small scale, and sacrificing your time and resources to help others is always an honorable act, but it still misses the bigger picture of Jesus Christ. 

You might be the person who is an unbelievers reading this and saying, you don’t need Jesus to be kind and do good work. And maybe you even claim to see good fruit of you labor. You see children being fed and you see people getting clean water. These works are good things and that’s all that matters. But with this mindset we fail to realize God’s sovereignty and to remember that sometimes we see good fruit from a situation, simply because God works all things for good for His glory; while also at the same time causing all things to come together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His [big and small] purpose. (Romans 8:28)

The small ”good”

This universe is so infinitely small, and we as people are even smaller, but we can’t see how small it all is until we see how big God really is. 

And we can’t see the darkness we are in until we see the holy, bright light of God.

We can strive to be a good person in the acts we do or in the person we try to portray to ourselves and to the outside world.  For instance, trying to be nice to others, trying to be patient, trying not to be judgmental — but in big ways and small ways we will always slip up and miss the mark no matter how good our deeds are. We need Jesus. We all do. There is no one else who can fill the gap between us and a holy God. We need Jesus to plead our case to God. 

And apart from knowing God and Jesus Christ who He sent, we will always be seen for our sin, big or small. And what we think is good will always be as filthy rags to a Holy God. 

Apart from knowing God’s goodness we will always have different definitions of what goodness is. And without coming to God and asking Him about what is good, we continue to live in darkness — maybe not pitch black darkness like I once did, but nevertheless it’s still dark, and it‘s still hard to see the truth of things without Him.  

What do you think is good to a Holy God?

Here’s the problem with doing a lot of ”good acts”: You can do a lot of good things, but still be a complete sinner who is dead in pornography addiction, dead in drug addiction, dead in lust, dead in anger, dead in gossip, dead in hatred towards God, dead in pride, the list goes on.  What God sees as good is a repentant sinner living a surrendered life for Him and persevering to a holy sanctified life that is set apart for Him, because without holiness you will not see God (Hebrew 12:14).

Before I gave my life in Christ, I met a handful of people who by my definition were “good people”.  I felt so influenced by them that I too would try to imitate their goodness in trying to be more approachable, by smiling and trying to be more talkative; less judgmental by being accepting of their sin; more patient because it’s “nice” to be patient — but I could never keep up with attempting to imitate their “goodness”. Eventually, I would just give up until I felt re-influenced by them is some way. 

But I remember the day that I decided that I would give up with trying. I felt wronged by some people in my life who I really strived to be a good friend to, but I felt hurt because it was rarely reciprocated. I remember the thought I had: People are so inconsiderate to me no matter how considerate I try to be to them. I’m just not doing it anymore.  From here my selfishness grew deeper, as more sin set into my life and heart.

All the bad qualities I saw in myself and hated about myself for good reason such as, ugly thoughts of people, ugly attitudes, jealousies, insecurities, my impatience, gossiping, etc.  I began to embrace them.  I found that it was impossible to change, so maybe I shouldn’t try to. I justified it with realizing that other people do these same things, and sometimes it’s even what people bond over. My observations of this then slowly snowballed into more gossip, more cliques, more irritations of people who rubbed me the wrong way, which led to bitterness. I slowly transformed into the darkest version of myself. 

I twisted my failure to be a “good person” into seeing it as embracing who I really was.  And I see this happening more and more in the secular world today.  

What I hear a lot of the world saying today is, ”you do you”, meaning, you be your authentic self no matter what sin that entails — 

Impatience because you want it quickly;
A chip on the shoulder because you’re just in a bad mood;
Anger because you feel it’s justified and at least you haven’t killed anyone; 
Lust because you’re just ”admiring” or because at least you’re not cheating;
Greed because you think you deserve more; 
Haters of God because the Bible is old-school or because the Way of Jesus is too narrow;
Selfish ambition because your goals are worth chasing and your happiness is number 1;
And pride that hides in many many forms. 

Be your authentic self even if it hurts other people. It’s as if other people and their feeling and thoughts don’t deserve respect. And God? He especially doesn’t deserve respect.  

I call out these specific sins because they are the types of sins that I saw as ”small” and insignificant. Sins that I didn’t see as necessarily good-things, however at the same time I saw them as ok-things.  And if they were ok, meaning “not bad”, then I was a ”good person”. When you really allow yourself to meditate on it all, it sounds so twisted. 

But here is the kicker, my smallest sins grew into bigger sins as I embraced them; or should I say as I embraced my authentic self. In my “small” sins I didn’t see myself as a bad person, until they slowly started to escalate.  And then one day I looked at myself mirror and didn’t know who I was anymore. I became a person I never thought that I would become. By my definition I was no longer a good person. 

I said this in a previous post and I’ll say it again:

My “authentic self” as a sinner is not good, and when I started embracing that, my life became an unbelievably tangled mess that produced extremely rotten fruit. 

When I look back at my thought process at this point of my life, I see that it was almost as if my “goodness” ran out. I couldn’t do it anymore, it felt like such a twisted and hurtful burden.  I didn’t have the grace of God to persevere in the emptiness of just being a good person. 

You will remain only in emptiness and darkness if you only strive to be a good person. We must turn our whole life to Christ and rely on the power of the Holy Spirt to do anything good — on a big scale or small scale. Without Him we only do hollow dead deeds.

Doing life for God, in God, and through God everything shifts to a blessing in this life and the life to come. Whatever good thing I’m trying to do in His name becomes a treasure stored up in heaven. I know I don’t completely understand the depth of what that even means, but I know that it must be an absolute- amazing-awesome-thing. 

Salvation is more than being a good person

Just to be clear, in saying all of this, I’m not saying that doing good works doesn’t matter. I believe our good works do matter to God, but the point is that they will never ever save us from the death of sin, and if we are never saved from our sin, then we remain separated from God.  I see this so distinctively in this reading about Cornelius in Acts 10.

Acts 10:31-36;42-43

He told me, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your gifts to the poor have been noticed by God! [32] Now summon a man named Simon Peter….’ [33] So I sent for you at once, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here, waiting before God to hear the message the Lord has given you.”  Then Peter began to speak: “I now truly understand that God does not show favoritism, 35but welcomes those from every nation who fear Him and do what is right. 36He has sent this message to the people of Israel, proclaiming the gospel of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all….42And He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that He is the One appointed by God to judge the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about Him that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.”

It dawned on me, that although Cornelius loved God and did good works for God, the message that Peter told Cornelius was about The Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It wasn’t about any other god or any honorable deed that a “good person” might do.  Having true faith in Jesus is what was key for the salvation of Cornelius and his household. 

Being saved isn’t based on works. It’s based on faith in Jesus Christ so no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8). The overflow of our faith and love for God will naturally compel us to do good works in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:9).  He creates that goodness in His transforming power, as we do the work He has prepared for us to do through Him (Ephesians 2:10). 

Goodness should be grown as a fruit of the spirit rather than something you strive for (Galatians 5:22-23). It is not what saves you and makes you righteous before God, so that one day you make it to heaven.

When our focus is on Christ and His kingdom, we shift our focus and our hearts to an eternal purpose, as we live as a living sacrifice to Him, out of gratitude of what He’s done for us. But in saying this, we must also remember not to become…

Over Burdened in good works   

When we ourselves desire to do more for God, to God, and through God; sometimes this is not God’s direction for a person.  

Even as believers of God, we might catch ourselves doing things from our own strength, and end-up doing works apart from God.  We must repent of even the good works we do that have come to overwhelm our hearts and our lives, because we might have bitten off more than we can chew. (Hebrews 6:1)

As we continue to do a good work for Him in raising our families or in feeding the poor it’s important to intentionally roll our works upon the lord and commit them to Him, because it allows our hearts to come back to the place of rest. It is only from a place of rest in our hearts we should be working from (Proverbs 16:3).  However, when we feel burdened through and through – in our hearts, our minds and our bodies – it could be an indication that we are doing parts of our lives apart from God. Meaning, we are not keeping in step with His Spirit or that we are not abiding in Him.   

I understand that sometimes life is chaotic and seasons are difficult, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be peace and rest in our hearts as we keep in step with The Spirt of God.

Intentionally resting and praying will always be a major part of what it means to keep in step with His Spirit. When we do this,  it helps to keep it in the forefront of our minds that He is ultimately in control, and The Lord of the work that we do. 

We allow God to be The Lord of the work that we do, by surrendering every part of our life to Him, even our work of good deeds.  Our surrender allows our work to be guided by Him and blessed by Him. 

Sometimes that guidance might include ceasing an activity completely and moving into a new season of something new. It could mean, to continue to do what you are doing, but to reprioritize it. It could mean slowing down and doing less in order to focus on something else more. That “something more” might even be in regards to a greater focus on your relationship with Him. 

As we do life and all the work that it entails — from the smallest work on our character and raising our families; to the bigger work of humanity issues, we must keep in step with His spirit and do work only from the strength of His grace, as we abide in Him.