Doing good by cultivating the fear of God

The wise Christian's cry is that he is saved by grace. He knows that he does not deserve the salvation he has received because of the wickedness of his heart. But now that we are saved by grace, God, in his goodness, wants to transform our hearts so that we become good and do good.

Our lives must be pleasing and useful to God. They must fulfill His will and not just satisfy our needs. This is of paramount importance because we, as Christians, generally consider ourselves to be living well when our needs are met. This is not the case. We are living well when God's desires are met through our lives. If we want to live spiritually meaningful lives, we must make it a point to please God and live in a way that pleases Him.

Give

This requires us to continually give to God. At our conversion, we give Him worthless and useless lives. We give Him lives that were destined for an eternity far from God. He takes these lives and wants to transform them so that each day they communicate to Him an offering of a sweet, holy, and pleasing aroma. He seeks lives modeled on that of Jesus, which will continually do good.

Jesus did good because of the goodness within him. He was free from the selfishness of wickedness and indifference. Many Christians today are indifferent to the good of the church, or the good of anyone but themselves. We must challenge ourselves to shift our priorities from focusing on our needs to focusing on God's desires. Ask yourself this question: What does God want? How can I be more like Jesus in this or that area?

We must challenge ourselves to change our priorities from focusing on our needs to focusing on God's desires. Share on X

Jesus was very different. Occasionally, someone writes blasphemous things about Jesus, and we are shocked. The reason we are shocked is because Jesus was known for His moral excellence. All His faculties were devoted to good and doing good. He had extraordinary moral rectitude. His character was in accordance with the will of God.

Our world is looking for people who possess moral excellence. Why not decide to be a model of moral excellence yourself?

We must not simply tell people what to do, we must show them through our lives, through the quality of life we have received from Jesus. This is extremely important. We have put more effort into upgrading our circumstances than into upgrading our hearts. We insist on changing our environment, our life situation, but not our character.

Moses had to choose the elders, and of all the requirements, there is one that seems to me to be paramount. They had to be men who feared God. This is a requirement that seems to have disappeared from the church. Today we have a culture in our churches where we feel that God is not very reasonable when He expects us to live up to His standards. Like never before, we have a generation that seems completely unwilling to live God's way.

While we often have not made the decision to manifest moral excellence in our lives, we nevertheless want to comment on the lifestyle of non-Christians. We cannot tell people what to do if we ourselves do not demonstrate by our lives that these things are doable.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray to God, 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.' In heaven, they do not give bribes; there is no dishonest gain. This is indeed one of the conditions for Moses' choice of elders. Some will say, 'But you don't know where I live.' No, it's not about the place or country where you live; it's about the place where you belong, that is, the kingdom of God. We belong to the kingdom of God.

Today we have a culture in our churches where we give the impression that God is not very reasonable when he expects us to meet certain standards. Share on X

How can we achieve a life of moral excellence?

We must decide to return to God.

We must once again cultivate the fear of God. If there is one thing we must decide to do right now, it is to begin to cultivate the fear of God again.

Let's go back to Moses and the elders. These elders must have been competent men who feared God and hated dishonest gain. This is very telling. Today there are people who want to be leaders within the Church, but who do not fear God. Yet Matthew 10:28 exhorts us not to fear those who can kill only the body, but to fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

2 Cors 7.1.

We must repent of our wickedness.

Some will even want to persuade you against the Word of God. In the past, when people did evil things, they hid from their pastors. Nowadays, they go to the pastor with great confidence to assert their right to live as they wish, regardless of the degree of iniquity. We must repent.