Good Is Not An Adjective

This past weekend I had the pleasure of being a part of DNOW weekend at my church. If you are unfamiliar with DNOW: it’s a weekend for the middle and high school students to just spend time hanging out with God and their friends. There’s a lot of reflection as well as lots of love and laughter! I’ve been a leader for DNOW every year since I graduated high school (well except for last year when I was inconveniently out of the country…) and I love it! Anyway, all of that to say that there was one point one of our speakers made this weekend that just really stuck out to me. Hopefully, this makes sense to you. It’s a new concept for me and I don’t really know how to best put it into words.

His point came from the story of the rich, young ruler who approached Jesus and asked him “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18) To which Jesus replies “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” (Luke 18:19) Now I’ve heard this story my whole life but usually, we just skip over those 2 verses and focus in on the part of the story when Jesus asks the ruler to give up everything and follow Him and the ruler can’t do it. But these 2 verses hold some super solid Biblical truth.

The word “good” is used to describe something that we should be proud of: good job or good work or wow you’re so good at that. If you have grown up anywhere near a church, you have probably heard the phrase “God is good” more times than you can count. Usually it comes up whenever there has been some hardship or a trial we don’t understand. It follows something like “Well you know I have been really worried about where we are going to get the money for (fill in the blank) but you know God is good and He will provide a way”. Does God really need our confirmation that He is good? Does He really need us to describe His actions as a job well done?

What if instead good was not a way of describing His actions or decisions but was used to describe Him? As our speaker put it: “Good is not a state of being, it is a person.” Yes, God is good. But not because of the choices He makes or the things He excels at, He just is! He never stops being good. It’s not a passing thing. He always is!

And here’s where you come in: don’t you think a person who by definition is GOOD would make any mistakes when He put you together? Do you think the fact He gave you the laugh He did and painted your eyes that color is a good thing? Something that when He looks at you He is proud of? We are made in God’s image so when we look at ourselves, we should see His goodness pouring out of us. God created the world and saw that it was good! It was good because it was His creation, something He intentionally pieced together to glorify Him. So yeah, you may not be “good” at talking to people or always “good” at loving those that are hard to, but you have been made by a Creator that by definition is. Let the goodness of God show itself through you. Celebrate God and His goodness!

God loves you. I love you. Go live a life without fear.