Blessed are those that hunger and thirst
after righteousness for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

– Jesus

Let us define being good as doing good naturally from an unselfish heart. Now we can look at the two possible conditions of man in relation to morality or personal goodness.

Everyone born on this earth is a child of Adam. As such they inherit the knowing of good and evil. They know right from wrong. This reluctant gift of God was chosen by the first people. It meant the end of their innocent state.

Harmony turned to a separation which Adam and Eve felt as nakedness. They became independent of God, alienated from nature, and even in disharmony with each other as was soon shown by blame and accusation.

A person may try to follow this internal direction, now called your ‘moral compass’. If reinforced by society and family, you may act as a ‘good’ person in your life.

Does this mean you are now good? Not really. As Jesus said, “You, being evil, are able to give good gifts…” Even though you may act good, it doesn’t mean you are good. Motivation may be fear or pride or even cunning calculation to get what you want. Or it may even be weakness in that you just go along with what is expected of you.

Before Jesus, people were considered either Jews or gentiles. The gentiles did sometimes hold up virtue and some reached to attain it. But all this is still the state of men without God. Made in the image of God, they retain the impression of the Good.

And the Jews had a clear definition of good behavior from God. The Law contained clear commands regarding living right. Sure, this helped the society function but did not make the individual good. Sacrifices were offered all the time for sin or wrongdoing. Big sacrifices once a year and personal sacrifices quite often.

In both cases, personal goodness did not result in the sense that good actions came naturally from a pure heart.

The idea of an ideal person lives in each one of us. The Jews were also given a hope in a coming savior who would be that ideal person. Jesus is the only one who fits this ideal. Jesus did not emphasize that keeping the Law of Moses was the way to eternal life. The fact was that even if you tried your best to do them, you would discover your heart did not match them.

So, life on earth after Jesus came cannot be just following rules of good behavior. It must be something quite different. And knowing good from evil had a fatal flaw; people don’t have the power to do good all the time. They can live somewhat good lives but they cannot bear up to an examination of their heart.

The heart is not pure. To be pure means to be only one thing. A pure heart does not contain two but only one desire. The heart of a man has never been pure. Even Adam easily desired something wrong. But Jesus said that the pure in heart are blessed. They will see God! So that one desire of the pure heart must be toward God.

How do you get there? There are three ways, I think. First, to try and be good. Eventually, you discover your heart is not good. You want God to change it. Second, you pursue evil and eventually your heart is so full of evil, you desire relief. Third, the injustice and deception around you moves you to call on God for relief.

In all three cases, the conclusion is the same. The heart of men is somehow wrong. In the first two, you see it in your own heart. In the third, you see it in others.

You have come to the right conclusion! Your heart begins to desire the one remedy that will work. God. Only he can change a heart. There is a promise made by God: ‘I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.’

This is repeated later with more detail: ‘I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

This is a big change. Maybe the biggest change of all. Those that heard Jesus speak were expecting an external change of circumstances from God. But he was always talking about internal change. The earth was fine in the garden of Eden. In that good environment, the two people chose to do the wrong thing. Good circumstances do not produce good people.

Let’s go back and look at the promise. Cleansing comes first. All the accumulated wrongness is removed by God. Some would call this forgiveness. But it also results in a clean conscience. God will change our heart from hardness to the kind we were meant to have: one that matches us as humans. More than this, he will put his Spirit in us. This will incline us toward good and motivate the best actions. We will become the kind of people we were created to become.

Maybe you are a Bible expert and say: this promise was to the Jewish people, decreed by their prophet, Ezekiel! That is true. But in The Acts of the Apostles, we learn that this is for all people because gentiles experience the very same transformation. Those Jewish people who would have doubted that this could happen were convinced by what they saw.

So we may be confident of two things: this promise is for all people and it is for right now. Better circumstances await us in the future. But our immediate concern is our heart. If our heart becomes right and pure, we may have all confidence in God to arrange everything else by his power.

Blessed are those that hunger and thirst
after righteousness for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

– Jesus

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They told Jesus that his friend Lazarus was sick, real sick. He said that this sickness would not end with death. Lazarus did die. But it was not the end because Jesus brought him back. Back from the dead.

But there is a sickness that ends in death. And just as Jesus showed that physical death was not the end of existence, he also offered the cure for the malady of sin. Sin is the sickness that leads to death.

Sin is wrongness and the wrong actions that result from that internal wrongness. The wrongness grows in us until there is no more hope. And our guilt comes from knowing some actions we have done are wrong. But we are wrong which is why we do wrong.

Some point to God’s forgiveness as the cure for sin. Sure, forgiveness is part of the cure. A big part. It covers the wrong things done in the past (and future really) but there is more to it. The cure for sin is to hate it. But you can’t live by a negative. But we can embrace the new spirit that wants newness over wrongness.

I said newness. Why? Because we don’t know what rightness looks like. And the Life from God is all new. New to us but not to God. Humans have gone their own way since they first walked the planet.

And now, we cannot figure ourselves out. We are a paradox. Our best attempts at goodness are like a light bulb trying to illuminate itself. The paradox is that we know we are something great. We just know it. And we are something really great. But we are unable to attain to that greatness.

In time, we find ourselves incapable of internal goodness. This eventually leads to despair. We cannot become good. Sure, we can do good things. But we are unable to become the people we would like to be. The truth is: We cannot change our nature without following Christ.

Now why is this? It’s because we don’t know what a good person looks like. No one knew until Jesus showed us that good person who behaves well in all circumstances. That is the positive. He is just the opposite of sin. He does what God wants all the time.

Did you know Jesus did not consider himself good? Someone called him good. He asked them why. “No one is good but God,” he said. He was in a live relationship with God, his Father. The Father. That’s where his goodness came from. He loved God and did what the Father wanted. And he seems to believe that we can be like him in this.

He wants to share himself with us. I am the Method, he said. Not just as a model but something more. The Life of God has no measure and cannot be exhausted. He is not diminished in the least by giving all of himself to each of us. This is the great difference between God and us. We are limited but he is not. We can run out of patience, love, endurance. He never runs out of Goodness and Love.

And the Life Power is only Good. There is no room for wrongness with him. He is not part good. Like the sun, he has no dark side.

He knows wrongness is really against our nature. And that human nature was made to be energized by the Divine Nature. That is why Christ came: to show us the way to live that is full of Life and empty of all else.

Only God Goodness will enliven us. There is no other Good, only God.

The Paradox

You keep yourself, you lose yourself.

You give up, you gain all.

You hold tight and you end up with nothing.

You throw your life away and you get it all back and then some.

Jesus threw his life away. He wasted it on common people. After all he had done, no one spoke up for him at his trial. He stood alone. And then he was tortured until he died.

It seemed a miserable end to another good man. Evil had won, again. But he turned it all around by returning from the dead. He convinced his friends he was back and better than ever.

He changed everything. People can’t forget what he said. They may not believe but they are still impacted by that one human life. And why? Because he brought New Life. Sure, to him, it was old as The Tree of Life, even older. But that Life is new to us because we never experienced it before. And again, he thinks we can be like him. He says Follow Me. If we receive him, we can begin to live like he did. Like he does.

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Jesus makes these opposite statements.

He who gives away what he has, will have more than he can imagine.

These statements are the opposite of what we think.

Jesus believes in God. I know, you heard that Jesus is God. But he didn’t say exactly that. He called himself the son of God. He spoke of his Father. God is different than us. There is The Father and there is The Son.

But let’s talk about Jesus. He loves God. He has a mother but he is different from other people. He sees a much bigger picture than we do. He takes the long view. He takes the longest view. He looks right past this life, and right into the next. He even calls death, sleep.

He looks at what a man is, more than what he does.
He doesn’t like things done for show.
He says you can do something that no one knows about and it has value, to God.
He says everyone can say that you are doing just great, when you are wasting your time.
He says that you can appear to be completely wrong, and yet be doing something good.

He, himself, seemed a complete failure. The idea of sacrificing something of value, to gain something much bigger than anyone could see was acted out by him.

Jesus brought the idea of self-sacrifice. But not just the idea. He sacrificed himself. It wasn’t an accident. He did it with purpose. He didn’t want to die. No one wants to die. No one should want to die. But he did allow evil men to kill him in the worst way they could think up. He didn’t resist them.

He always did the right thing to do. How did he know what that was? He said he enjoyed doing the will of his Father. He knew what to do because he set aside his own will and did his Father’s will.

So, why would Jesus allow himself to be killed? Why? Because it revealed what men had become. Political men. Religious men. Men who were supposed to lead everybody else. They were the ones who pushed it. And a crowd chanted, ‘crucify him!’ And the governor says, Okay, you can kill him. I don’t approve but I really don’t care. And government workers carry out the killing without normal human feeling. But Jesus believes in God. He goes through it because something good will come out of it. Everyone knows it’s a terrible injustice and nobody understands it. Nobody. It doesn’t make any sense. No one could best him in an argument. No one could touch him. He was so powerful. And now he is dead. Dead.

It’s a couple days later. It’s over. He is dead and buried. But something happens that no one expects. He comes back. Yeah, he comes back. He shows up and scares his friends. He sits down and asks for some food. Why? Because ghosts don’t sit and eat food. He talks to them. He calls them by name. They believe it’s him. It is not a séance. He doesn’t knock once for yes and twice for no. Just when they start to relax, he’s gone. A guy named Thomas comes in and they tell him what happened. “I’m not buyin’ it. I need to be convinced,” he says.

What about you? Are you convinced? Do you want to be? Ask him to prove he is real. Don’t demand proof. Just ask him to do for you what he did for Thomas. Because he will. He will convince you. And then what? What will you do then?

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The things we do every day, we do by the power of God. The power we have to live and do stuff is not from ourselves. Did you design your body? Maybe your parents did. Ask them. The first woman said at the birth of her son, “I have gotten a man from the Lord.” This was the first birth of a human. The first humans were so well made, they lived for hundreds of years.

We have power to live, but we do not make that power.

It is hard to believe. But so is anything else. Why would someone create men and then not demand gratitude, at the least? Maybe he thinks, ‘They know they didn’t make themselves. Maybe they will wonder who did? Maybe they will try and find out.’ If God made man and he doesn’t demand obedience, that tells us something about him. We can live without ever acknowledging him. Free will?

Why is man creative? Why is he not satisfied? Why does he think there is more to life? These thoughts should not be. We value independence in America. But down deep, we know that we are not independent. We are very dependent. On air, on water, on warmth, on food and much more. We are like a computer that is marvelously made. It works until the battery runs out. But our computer tells us, “You need to plug me in. Then I won’t die. I’ll keep going.” It is that smart.

If you look on the bottom, it says, “Are you sure you want to open me? Maybe you need a professional.” The new ones don’t give you a choice. It doesn’t open. This is a jump, I know, but didn’t Jesus show himself uniquely qualified when he didn’t open people up but fixed something anyway. No, that arm is all wrong, it should work like this. This guy is not supposed to be like this. Wow. He is normal now. He is ordinary. Except he wasn’t a few minutes ago.

I had a surgeon once that fixed something that had gone wrong with me. He told me, “I just put the pieces near each other, God does the healing.”

What if we said, “I know I’m wonderful. But something is wrong with me. I can’t do things the way I would like. Can you make an adjustment? Can you fix me?”

And let’s talk about love. Yes. love. Why does it go wrong so often? Maybe we started on Chapter Four, like Star Wars did. We left out some stuff. Maybe we should go back and find out what we missed.

Somebody made you. And you can love. That means he can love better than you. We haven’t yet figured out everything. Somebody is wise. More wise than us. And we can be good sometimes. Someone is good all the time. Like Jesus said, “Why call me good? No one is good, except God.

Let’s practice loving. Let’s take an easy one. Let’s love the best person ever: God. Then we can work on loving those that are less perfect.

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The Lord who had made the Universe — how should he show it but as the Healer did? He could not make the universe over again in the eyes of every man. 

He must reveal himself as the God who set things, things that had gone wrong, right again. Now that could be done in the eyes of each person. Wouldn’t this reveal that God was here with us? Here we see him giving relief to the young son of a man who had given up on a cure. Now, the man has seen him heal his son from a distance. 

No one saw it happen. It was not for show. What moved the man to faith? His love for his son. He who loves can believe what he who loves not, cannot believe; and he who loves most, can believe the most. The man returned home and was told that the boy got better at a certain time. Only this man knew that this was the exact time Jesus told him his son would live. 

This is about a God who is not limited. He is not afar off. He may be unseen but is not uncaring. There is no distance with God, though it looks like it to us. When Jesus cured like this, it has the same appearance as God’s ordinary healing. Who heals you? My body heals itself, you might say. But why should it? 

Now think of the son. He is told how he was healed by the word of Jesus. He never met him. But his father is a reliable fellow and tells him how God did this. How is that different than if someone tells us how God did this or that for them? Or how God changed everything in their life with a word. We have been healed many times. You looked down some time later and your injury was healed. 

Just because the sun rises each day is no reason to think it’s not marvelous. We have been personally gifted by God. We received the gift of sight just like the man born blind. We just forgot. Are the eyes that see everyday less wonderful than the ones that opened on the world for that man who had never seen anything? Eyes are wonderful at any time. 

And the God who gave us all gifts wants to give us more. Every good gift is from God whenever we receive it. We know there are things wrong in this world. And Jesus put things right as he found them wrong. But he didn’t force anything on anyone. If you think all is well with you, forget about God. You don’t need him. But the one that finds wrongness in this world sees something. The one that finds wrongness in themselves sees even more. And that person needs the Healer. They need something put right. 

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Humble yourself, put off weak reason; silence foolish nature; and learn that man infinitely transcends man. You have a Master who reveals your true condition, of which you are ignorant. Hear God.

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I am a fan of the Beatles. They came to America when I was 13. One thing the fans would talk about is a true history of the Beatles. They wanted to know it.

But when it finally came down to it, it could not be written. Each of the guys had different memories of the same event. Maybe two would agree but another would say it didn’t happen like that.

Let us consider a story. A man is walking down the street one night when it begins to rain. It is really windy with lightning flashing along with buckets of water coming down. He looks for shelter and finds an unlocked door. He enters the darkened place and shuts the door. He is happy to have found a refuge. He does not mind the dark and waits for the storm to stop. Finally, it does. He leaves and goes home.

The next day, he wonders where he was during the storm. He retraces his steps and finds it was an art gallery, full of beautiful paintings.

The man was surprised to find he was surrounded by wonderful art and was unaware of it. Because of his situation and the darkness, he perceived none of it.

Consider this: you and I perceive the world and people around us. But are we correct in our perception? I don’t mean physically. Our eyes see what is there. But do we understand what it means?

What I am saying is that our perception of life may be in error. How did it begin? How will it end? Is it true God began the world and humankind? If it is, that changes everything.

I once rode in an elevator up to the top of the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada. What I saw was a few of us in a tiny room. There was no sound or feeling of movement. The doors closed, one minute later they opened again and we went out into a place very high in the air. My mind could not believe it. It was like some sort of magic. I even walked out onto a glass floor and looked down without fear. I could not believe it was a real experience.

We know there are things beyond our perception. Marie Currie worked with radioactive material. She felt no harm, yet she died rather young from the exposure to the radium.

Jacob fell asleep in the desert. He had a vision. He woke up and said, “The Lord is in this place and I didn’t know it.” God had been involved with Jacob all his life. Jacob just didn’t know it.

As an old man, Jacob was brought to Egypt by his son, Joseph. Jacob had thought Joseph was dead. Jacob even spoke with the pharoh of Egypt. The last we see of Jacob, he is leaning on his staff and worshipping the God who had cared for him all his life.

Do you and I see correctly? Are we like Jacob? Do we see that God is working in our life? He is calling you to see the truth.

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Do the will of God, and you will know God, and he will open your eyes to look into the very heart of knowledge. But if you go your own way, you may gain knowledge, but miss the truth.

How kind God is to offer healing to men who are sick. The disease is called sin. This is not a metaphor but a very real condition.

It is like you go to the doctor for a routine physical and hear him say, “There is a problem.”

“But doctor, I have no symptoms.

“It may seem so, but have you experienced this or that?”

“Yes, but I was told everybody has experiences like that. It means nothing.”

“Not so,” he says, “It means this. We must address it and make you healthy or it will hurt you as time goes on.”

Yes, there are symptoms. They are all around us. We can call it normal life, but God says it is not what he intended for people. What we think is normal human experience is far from the possibilities God has for us.

He offers us the cure. But we must do two things. Acknowledge the condition and accept his cure.

That cure is simply this: do the will of God. Do what God says. This is how we humans went wrong a long time ago. We said to God, “Thanks for creating us but we can take it from here.”

We thought we would be fine but trouble soon came causing pain and suffering. Not just physical but deep emotional pain caused by loss and futility. Futility, in that we had no answer to the problems. Finally, we reach despair because we have no answers in ourselves.

This is the condition of people: there is something wrong with us and we don’t know what it is. And we have no way to fix it. Not in society and not in ourselves.

Try and be good. I am serious. See if you can become really good. Don’t accept any compromise with evil. Become that best person.

Don’t accept anything but real goodness in you that flows out naturally. Don’t seem to be good. Become that good person in reality.

If you can do it, you will become the answer for everyone else. You will become the first person in the world to have become good on your own with no help from God whatsoever.

Of course, you must maintain your goodness in all situations. Like when people don’t understand you or even resist your efforts. That’s the real test. You are good and they are ungrateful as you are doing good towards them. Patiently continue no matter what.

Or you can turn to God for his help. It is up to you. Yes, use your own wisdom and power or find the cure offered by the one who made humans. He has revealed it through Jesus.

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No one wants to talk about sin these days. I don’t want talk about sin, either. Okay, what is sin? Not sins, but sin. Sin is a state of wrongness. It is the opposite of rightness. There is a strange line in the ancient book of Daniel. It says that the coming one, the Messiah, will deal with sin in a final way. Daniel also prophesied when this Messiah would come. And it was about the time Jesus showed up. So according to Daniel’s prophesy, Jesus would deal with sin in a dramatic and final way, he would atone for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness. It also says he will be cut off and have nothing. That means die.

We know what happened. Jesus told his disciples that sinful men would take him and kill him. He also gave other predictions of what this would mean. We grab on to the part about forgiveness. But there is more. More? God can forgive sins. But look at what happened. Jesus, who no one could say was bad. Not Pilate, nor any fair-minded people in Israel. Who could say that he did anything bad? The final accusation was that he claimed to be the Messiah.