LIVING FOR GOOD
Romans 12
“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”
In Romans 12, Paul calls us to yield ourselves to God so he can renew our mind. A sober view of who we are, having responded to the Gospel, is that we are no longer important individuals ourselves but individuals who are important to the good of the body of Christ, the “one another” that he speaks of here. We have been saved from despair, blessed by grace, and so we offer ourselves to live our lives for good—the good of the Body and the good of society—promoting the acts of good and not the acts of evil because we now are the children of God.
How do we live our lives for good? Paul describes to us the qualities of good: Love, devotion, honour, passion, joy, hope, patience, faithfulness, generosity, hospitality. He calls us to soak ourselves in these that must surely remind us of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
He calls on us to avoid the attitudes that are detrimental to good—“tit for tat” justification, a lack of empathy, pride and arrogance, conceit—basically arising from a self-centred view of self.
Finally Paul calls us to rest in the power of good rather than be tempted to take up the weapons of evil and hatred; we must hate what is evil and cling to what is good. Let God deal with matters of revenge and punishment of evil; our task is to wield the weapons of good: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.”
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”