Romans 16:19 says, “Be excellent at what is good.”
What does it mean to be excellent at something?
Like a tradesman, or a person with a very specifically honed skill, a person that is excellent at something:
-Brings, into every situation, an awareness of that which they excel at
-They bring an ability to perceive that which they excel at, in any given situation
The goodness of God is meant to be something the we excel at. Something we are familiar with! Something we recognize and express in every life situation.
There are two roadblocks in the mind of the Believer that keep us from seeing the goodness of God in the world/people around us:
1) Heaven is far off
2) The World/Man are wholly and completely evil
*The life, death, and overcoming victory of Jesus established Heaven as a reality on earth. His entire ministry was, “on earth as it is in heaven.” His victory removed the veil that once separated heaven and earth. We have been reconciled to God, seated in heavenly places, given every spiritual blessing in Christ!
*You have access to Heaven! At all times and in all circumstances! Because of the awesome work of Jesus!
*The goodness of God, expressed eternally in heaven, is available at your fingertips! And it’s being expressed and infused into every life experience you have, by the Father who is the giver of every good and perfect gift.
Your life experience was meant to be beautiful. And good.
God desires to be infused in every experience of life.
It’s the religious spirit, the religious mind, that separates what is “spiritual” from what is “natural.” And it says that your experience of God is dependant on your ability to operate within the lines of the ‘spiritual box.’
God is not a box!
And He cannot be boxed in!
He didn’t come so that He could make the box bigger. Then He’d still be in the box!
He came to do away with the box altogether!
To get rid of any hindrance to our experience of Him. To overcome that which would limit His expression in your life.
He cannot be limited!
God intended that every single experience in your life would be an experience of His love. And expression of His goodness.
Your experience of God was never intended to be based on your performance.
He never intended a single aspect of your life to be separate from Him.
We need to learn to see Him, experience Him, every where that He is… in every aspect of life!
We need to Spirit of Revelation to guide us in our discovery of Emmanuel, God with us.
………………………………………………..
And this is not just about your personal experience of the goodness of God.
But we are responsible to give the world an encounter with His goodness.
It is our mandate!
Gen. 1:1 … God created, and He saw that it was good.
As He observed all that He had created, He made the prophetic declaration, “it is good.”
The spoken word of God has deposited the seed of goodness in all of creation.
*And our mandate is to steward that deposit it, and to reproduce it unto increase.
“Tend the garden (the place of goodness, glory), be fruitful and multiply.”
We are to steward the goodness of God.
And to connect people to it.
You know when you are in the middle of an experience, and you are overwhelmed by how good it is? And then you connect the experience to God, who gives all good gifts. And suddenly His presence rushes into the experience…. and suddenly it becomes an encounter with Him.
Have you ever experienced that??
Once we make that connection: This is good… and it’s God! He always responds with His Presence! All we have to do is simply turn toward Him, turn our affection toward Him, and He never hesitates to respond to us!
And what if we could be that connection for the world?
Connect the good things they are experiencing, with the God that is pouring Himself out on them, and see their experience become an encounter, as God floods in.
People are starving for the goodness of God. They are desperate for it!
David expressed it this way: “I would have lost heart, grown faint, if I had not believed I would see the goodness of God in the land of the living.”
There are people all around you that are loosing heart. They are growing faint.
Because they don’t see the goodness of God in the land around them.
They are excellent at it. They simply can’t see it! They’ve never been exposed! They can’t recognize it for what it is.
But you and I have been “given the ministry of reconciliation.”
We are called to reconcile people, reconnect them, to God.
To take the good things they are experiencing, and connect them to that God that longs to encounter them!
We have this idea that pointing out sin is what’s going to connect people to God.
And it’s wrong.
[Romans 1 & 2]
Paul spends the latter half of Romans 1 laying out the reality of sin. And he lists about 50 ways sin expresses itself in people’s lives… malicious behaviour, immorality, deceitfulness, murder, anger… and the list goes on.
But what is his response to this reality?
How does he admonish the church to respond?
The very first verse in Chapter 2 says, “How inexcusable it is for you that judge these. For in the same manner that you judge, you yourself are condemned.”
And in verse 4, he presents the better response, the solution…
“Or do you despise the kindness of God…Not knowing that it’s His goodness that leads man to repentance?”
It’s the GOODNESS of God that leads people to repentance!
Not our judging, condemning, response of punishment.
People are well aware of their sin.
It’s the goodness of God that blows their minds and produces repentance in their hearts.
“God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power and He went around doing good and destroying the works of the enemy.”
Jesus arrived on the scene of humanity, in all of its sin and bondage, and God anointed Him with power to do good, destroying the works of the enemy. Let’s seek the same anointing and power!
Let’s become a magnet for the goodness of God!
Let’s become so excellent, so able to perceive and express the goodness of God, so aware of the presence of His goodness all around us, that we literally attract it everywhere we go!
I want the goodness of God to be attracted to me!
I want the goodness of God that may be hidden or veiled, to be revealed when I enter a situation, because of the excellence I carry.
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, the glory of Kings to search it out.”
As sons of God, it is our glory, our authority, to search out a matter!
Because whatever matter you search out, it will be revealed to you! It’s the anointing that we’ve been given. To search our mysteries, hidden things, veiled realities.
Because when you ask, you receive. When you knock, the door is opened.
When you seek, you will find!
What are you seeking out today?
What hidden things are you searching out?
How are you using the authority that God has given you?
Are you using your authority as a king to search out judgement? Punishment? Sin?
Or are you using your authority, your glory as a son of God, to search out His goodness all around you, knowing that His goodness revealed will draw men to repentance?
Let’s steward the goodness of God in the earth!
And let’s see it increase until it covers the earth, like waters cover the sea!
[Spoken by: Randi Raye Strickland]
