GOODNESS
Do all the
good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the
places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can and as long
as you can.
It was the saying of a heathen though no heathenish saying, “That he who would be good, must either have a faithful friend to
instruct him, or a watchful enemy to correct him.”
William Secker
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 115.
Kindness
is a sincere desire for the happiness of others; goodness is the activity
calculated to advance that happiness. Kindness
is the inner disposition, created by the Holy Spirit, that
causes us to be sensitive to the needs of others, whether physical, emotional,
or spiritual. Goodness is kindness in action – words and deeds. Because of this
close relationship, we often use the two words interchangeably.
Jerry Bridges
The Practice of Godliness, NavPress, 1996, p.
189. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com.
All rights reserved.
We need to
develop a kind disposition, to be sensitive to others and truly desire their
happiness. But sensitivity alone is not enough:
the grace of goodness impels us to take action to meet those needs.
Jerry Bridges
The Practice of Godliness, NavPress, 1996, p.
191. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com.
All rights reserved.
Do not only
take occasions of doing good when they are thrust upon you; but study how to do
all the good you can, as those "that are zealous of good works." Zeal
of good works will make you plot and contrive for them; consult and ask advice
for them; it will make you glad when you meet with a hopeful opportunity; it
will make you do it largely, and not sparingly, and by the halves; it will make
you do it speedily, without unwilling backwardness and delay; it will make you
do it constantly to your lives' end. It will make you labor in it as your
trade, and not consent that others do good at your charge. It will make you
glad, when good is done, and not to grudge at what it cost you. In a word, it
will make your neighbours to be to you as yourselves,
and the pleasing of God to be above yourselves, and therefore to be as glad to
do good as to receive it.
Richard Baxter
The supreme
test of goodness is not in the greater but in the smaller incidents of our
character and practice; not what we are when standing in the searchlight of
public scrutiny, but when we reach the firelight flicker of our homes; not what
we are when some clarion-call rings through the air, summoning us to fight for
life and liberty, but our attitude when we are called to sentry-duty in the
gray morning, when the watch-fire is burning low. It is impossible to be our
best at the supreme moment if character is corroded and eaten into by daily
inconsistency, unfaithfulness, and besetting sin.
F.B. Meyer
Our Daily Walk. Christianity Today, v. 36,
n. 10.
Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both.
Tryon Edwards
Goodness [to others who offend us] breaks the spell the
enemy tries to cast and renders him powerless.
Dan Allender
Copied from Bold Love by Dan Allender, 1992. Used by
Permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com. All Rights
Reserved.
The extent to
which I love God and reflect that love by doing His will revealed in the Word
of God is also the degree to which I “love what is good” [see Rom. 12:9]. Consequently, the real questions I must face
are: Do I really love God? How much
do I really love God?
Gene
Getz
The Measure of a Man by Gene Getz, Copyright
1995, p. 230, Gospel Light/Regal Books, Ventura, CA 93003. Used by Permission.
True goodness
is not merely impulsive, but rational and considerate – It will therefore
pause, and be at some trouble to inquire what service, and how best may it be
rendered… Goodness should be willing to give time, and thought, and patience,
and even labor; not mere money and kind words and compassionate looks.
Bethune
The Fruit of the Spirit, p. 117.
We should
therefore learn that the only good we have is what the Lord has given us
gratuitously; that the only good we do is what He does in us; that it is not
that we do nothing ourselves, but that we act only when we have been acted
upon, in other words under the direction and influence of the Holy Spirit.
Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, The
First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1960, p.
317-318, www.eerdmans.com.
I would leave
this with you: Be always doing or receiving good. Our
Lord and Master went up and down in this world doing good;
He was still doing good to body and soul; He was motivated by an untired power. Be still doing or receiving good. This will
make your lives comfortable, your deaths happy, and your account glorious, in
the great day of our Lord. Oh! how useless are many
men in their generation!
Thomas Brooks
Farewell Sermon at the Great Ejection.