good vs. bad

What makes a person good?

What I gather from people is that they believe your either good or bad. What has become the standard for being good because of this mindset? To be good you must not do bad.

This is irritatingly dim to even a black and white person as myself. Usually people who are black and white are usually disregarded by the general public because it is assumed that they are narrow minded individuals, however, let me emphasize my position here in that while my responses are black and white, my thinking it rather grey ... that is the only way to establish a strong black or white response. So, to say that these are our only two options really shows us all how much, and to what degree, the devil has infiltrated our society, even to its core. Let me use a rather simple illustration taken from the book of Revelation.

"I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." -Revelation 3:15-16

In this scenario we can establish that cold is bad, and hot is good. But, it is the middle ground, this state of being lukewarm, that is in fact leaving them detested. So, if we can realize that between good and bad, hot and cold, light and darkness, there is a climate of stale, dimly lit, and muggy conditions that are ultimately roaring with passivity then we can establish that there is so much more to this whole good/bad model. Realize this ... the middle ground, this state of being lukewarm, or even staying away from evil and assuming that your good because your "doing the right thing" is ultimately the most distasteful aspect of life ... LISTEN UP!

I think that while so many are numb to this middle-ground the other big issue is that we think that we are good. This really enables us from seeing our true wickedness. You just gotta hear what Jesus said about good people, even in relationship to himself.

"And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone."-Mark 10:18

So, if no one is good accordingly to Jesus except God why do we even maintain the idea that "good" is something that we can be?

"No one is righteous, no not one."-Romans 3:10

The only thing good and righteous about us is Jesus. So, for us to believe that we can be made good by our works, in this case, our efforts to abstain from bad, do not make us good ... after all, good is exclusive to God's character. Maybe we have seen the fruits of following Christ manifested in other people's lives and as an effort to draw close to God, we instead simply fashion ourselves around a Christ-follower. The error is that at the end of the day you don't personally know Jesus any more than you did when you started your day ... however, you may know him less because you are allowing men to set the bar for Christ instead of allowing Christ to speak for Himself. We have to realize that the kingdom is about action, its about raging war with the right enemies ... not turning a deaf ear to the fight because that is chalked up to a "win" on behalf of the devil. If Christ life and death was indeed an act of war on evil then we should expect nothing less from our walk with God. We have to reclaim this aspect of life for the Kingdom! The Kingdom is established first in you heart and then it manifest itself for all to see.

Ill leave it at that. Hopefully thats enough to get your wheels turning!