Goodness & Godliness

This morning my church started a new Lenten sermon series called "Becoming Like Jesus." Each week the pastor will examine one of the characteristics from the passage 2 Peter 1: 3-8.

"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. "

What a great passage! I'm so excited to hear our pastors unpack this scripture in the coming weeks.

Today we heard about goodness and Godliness. It makes sense for these to be examined together, our pastor explained, because none of us can be good without God, and, the only thing good is God. They are interconnected. None of us can achieve the qualities listed in the scripture without God's help, although the list is more than a little overwhelming. I can't be all those things at once! Not even close! Or can I...

The comment from the sermon that stuck with me the most was how often we strive to be only good enough. We don't even try for good, let alone Godly! I had to think a little bit to make sense of this, because sometimes I think good enough truly is that, good enough. For example, I don't think God really cares that at the end of the day I strive to have my kitchen floor clean enough, not perfectly clean. So the big question is, what in my life do I strive to do good enough instead of good? So far I have thought of two things. I will confess that I often settle for good enough when I plan the lesson from the Sunday School class I co-teach. And, I confess even more grudgingly, that there are days when I care for Baby B and Baby D good enough, rather than truly good. I can offer excuses for why this is the case but I don't think that's really the point. The point is, do I even ask God to help me reach good? Or I am sunk in the earthly attitude that good enough truly is good enough? I have no doubt in believing that the students I teach and the precious babies I care for definitely deserve more than good enough from me...so what am I going to do about it?

And what about you? What things in your life are you striving to do good enough but that you'd like to do good? Or even Godly? Are you asking God to help you get there?