Tag: wash

31.p. “O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you”

 

Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

 Deuteronomy 10:12-13   “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,  and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?

 Hosea 6:6   For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

 Hosea 12:6   “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”

 Zephaniah 2:3    Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the LORD.

 Proverbs 21:3   To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.

 Isaiah 1:16-19    Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,  learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.  “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.  If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

 2 Peter 1:5-8   For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,  and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,  and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.  For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 Psalms 73:28    But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

The want to do good needs a foundation. It needs to be based on something firm, lasting, and true. “Doing Good” needs definition. Where are we to find this foundation and definition? What are we to base “good” and “doing good” on? This all depends on where you look and where you are seeking answers from. Worldly good has some benefit but this secular good has little to no eternal foundation. If doing good is for the benefit of another this is good but what is the reason behind the act of goodness? Was it because you feel good after doing it? Was it done because of empathy? Was it a combination of both? Was it done so it could be seen by others and thereby you receive some sort of recognition? The foundation upon which good acts are done is more important. If I do good acts of kindness what is the reason and purpose behind the intentional choice to do them? 

The foundation of all good acts should be grounded in the desire to obey and honor and glorify Jesus Christ. It is when this foundation is present in the heart, soul, and mind that the good we do will be for something heavenly and lasting. There is so much to say about being able to discern the leading and being willing led by the Holy Spirit in acts of goodness, but the foundation of all our thoughts, speech, and acts needs to be from a humble and pure heart that believes, trusts, relies, obeys, and follows God’s Word for the honor and glory of Jesus Christ.

16.q. “But that the works of God might be displayed in him”

John 9:1  As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

Matthew 11:5    the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

John 11:40     Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

John 11:4    But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Jesus will soon show a different way. He won’t dwell on the theological puzzle, but on actually helping the man. “It is ours, not to speculate, but to perform acts of mercy and love, according to the tenor of the gospel. Let us then be less inquisitive and more practical, less for cracking doctrinal nuts, and more for bringing forth the bread of life to the starving multitudes.” (Spurgeon)

 We often suspect that where there is a more than ordinary sufferer, there is a more than ordinary sinner. The disciples believed this so much so that they wondered if this man had actually sinned before he was born, causing his blind condition. “In their thinking about divine retribution they had not advanced far beyond the position of Job’s friends.” (Bruce)

 Dods suggested five possible reasons behind their question.

· Some of the Jews of that time believed in the pre-existence of souls, and the possibility that those pre-existent souls could sin.

· Some of the Jews at that time believed in some kind of reincarnation, and perhaps the man sinned in a previous existence.

· Some of the Jews at that time believed that a baby might sin in the womb.

· They thought the punishment was for a sin the man would later commit.

· They were so bewildered that they threw out a wild possibility without thinking it through.

Speaking to this man’s situation, Jesus told them that even his blindness was in the plan of God so that the works of God should be revealed in him. Think of all the times the little blind boy asked his mother, “Why am I blind?” Perhaps she never felt she had a good answer. Jesus explained, it is because God wants to work in and through even this. Jesus pointed the question away from why and on to the idea, what can God do in this? In this man’s case, the specific work of God would soon be revealed: to heal him of his blindness. God may reveal His works in other lives in other ways, such as joy and endurance in the midst of the difficulty. The question for us is not where suffering has come from, but what are we to do with it. “This does not mean that God deliberately caused the child to be born blind in order that, after many years, his glory should be displayed in the removal of the blindness; to think so would again be aspersion on the character of God. It does mean that God overruled the disaster of the child’s blindness so that, when the child grew to manhood, he might, by the recovering of his sight, see the glory of God in the face of Christ, and others, seeing the work of God, might turn to the true Light of the World.” (Bruce)  “Whenever you see a man in sorrow and trouble, the way to look at it is, not to blame him and inquire how he came there, but to say, ‘Here is an opening for God’s almighty love. Here is an occasion for the display of the grace and goodness of the Lord.’” (Spurgeon)