The Good Life: Making and Keeping It Good
What makes life good? I can imagine lots of answers: love, money, pleasure, friends, and family are probably at the top of most lists. I would rather say health, love, peace, joy, security, and hope, along with having the basics of food, clothing, and shelter. Is there really a difference? To a great extent, the differences reflect two different ways of seeing ourselves and the world. One is self-centered, limited in scope, and doomed to fail. The other is more balanced, unlimited in possibilities, and filled with promise. I suspect most people really want the latter but get caught in the former. Those who know better and still focus on the former are what I would call evil.
I’m not writing about either list. Instead, I will discuss four words that, to me, represent the substance of a lifestyle that can change the world. It has changed the world in the past, and it is still happening today, in some parts of the world. It is, in my opinion, the key to protecting our American way of life, but it is, more essentially, the key to the Good Life, a rich and exciting life that each of us can have and share with others. The four words that are the framework of the good life are contentment, credibility, influence, and grace.
Pontius Pilate asked the famous question, “What is truth?” A man approached Jesus, prior to that and said, “Good Rabbi,” probably just being respectful, and Jesus challenged him with, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Humans are concerned with what is true, or perhaps more accurately, who is right. God, for obvious reasons, is concerned with who is good. When we think of the “good life,” we mean a life that is good for us and to us. What God desires in a good life is a life that is good from His divine and perfect perspective. So, when I discuss the key to the Good Life, I am appealing to your desires, but I am necessarily and ultimately aiming at what He desires for us. In other words, when we work to achieve what He recommends, I believe we will finally achieve what we really desire. That is the Good Life!
Life is tough, and we are flawed. Whatever we think we want, whatever method we use to get what we want, we will find disappointment. The Good Life is one in which we are able to be content with ourselves and our situation. Contented people are basically happy and comfortable with their lives, so they are nice people to know. They are free to share, help, encourage, and love others. They become people others can trust because they have nothing to hide, have no need to seek advantage, and can be honest about themselves and their lives. Such people today are not only credible; they are incredible! As such, they gain great influence with the people around them, who admire them, want to be like them, and want what they have. Their credibility and influence are crucial for them to win people over to their faith, a faith based on grace, and a life that is gracious or winsome. Indeed, it is grace that is the source of their contentment, credibility, and influence.
Are you contented? Someone has suggested that three questions are the key to determining if a person’s life is working: “What do you want? What are you doing to get what you want? Is it {what you are doing to get what you want) working? Many of us want love, and many of us are failing miserably. Sometimes the problem is wanting the wrong thing, but often people are try to get what they want in counter-productive ways. Better methods are more likely to produce better results. If love is the goal, then loving methods will work best. Unfortunately, many seek love in ways that are selfish and unloving[1], and it is no wonder they fail.
Of course, some people want things that may not be admirable. Others may have good intentions but poor methods that lead to failure. Yet, even those with good goals and appropriate ways of gaining them still fail to fulfill their objectives. Most Christians, with an optimistic[2] view of life and confidence in a loving God, acknowledge that even the kindest, most moral people suffer at times. How then is contentment possible?
I like this line from Robert Browning: “God is in His heaven, and all is right with the world.” It summarizes the key to contentment. First, let me spell it out, without God in the formula. To be content, a person needs to have good goals, appropriate ways of achieving them, and a character or lifestyle that permits few regrets. Even if such people fail to accomplish and acquire all that they may have wanted, I believe most will be content, to a great degree. What we do to get what we want affects more than our success; it governs how others see us and how we see ourselves. Contentment involves not just success but succeeding or failing without shame. Success that causes people to despise us is a lonely kind of success; shame and failure together are lonelier still. Neither leads to contentment; neither is worth the price of loneliness and contempt.
The Bible says (I Timothy 6:6), “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” Since God grants forgiveness through Jesus Christ, we have the opportunity to remove the shame that all of us acquire because none of us is perfect. The element that God brings to our ability to be content is this removal of the consequences of our mistakes and an added measure of perspective. I believe God blesses our right goals and right methods, both in the present with contentment, and in the unending future with blessings beyond comprehension for our doing so. In all of that, godliness with contentment is indeed great gain. I believe that is why the Apostle Paul could say, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Nothing makes life better than godliness with contentment, which is why it is one of the 4 keys to the Good Life.
Are you credible? Do you even want to be credible? Actually, I think you do? Nobody wants to be doubted, disbelieved, or not trusted. Perhaps, it is easier to argue for being credible than for being truthful or honest. So many things have led us to question the value of those qualities, or at least, the benefits of practicing them. Isn’t that ironic, though. People want to be believed and trusted, but they don’t see the value of being truthful and trustworthy. In fact, who screams the loudest when someone questions his or her veracity? Typically, it is the person who lies and has been caught lying.
It takes a measure of maturity, I will allow, to be falsely accused of lying or anything else and not to rise in one’s own defense. However, if we have worked toward the contentment I just described, then it will be easier to rest in the knowledge of our own integrity. I know the truth; God knows the truth. Those who know me will believe and trust me because I have become credible, as they have come to observe me, through many experiences, over an extended period of time. I believe that there are few other achievements in life comparable to having a good, credible reputation.
I was lucky[3]. I gained an appreciation for the value of truth, honesty, and keeping promises when I was young. I also heard the story of Solomon, who could have had anything he asked from God and chose wisdom, I also wanted to be wise. I know of nothing wiser than being a person of truth and integrity.
Of course, there is another element to being credible, and that is knowledge. Today, many think that truth is relative, and there are no absolutes. Even science and history have been corrupted by this empty, pointless philosophy. The result, I believe, besides moral relativism, is ignorance. With the progress of science and technology, we live in an era of nearly unlimited access to knowledge and information; yet, Americans commonly finish school and hope never to have to pursue another hour of education, read another book, or learn anything new. Commencement, to many, is the end and not the beginning, what the word actually means.
“A mind is a terrible thing to waste” applies to more than denying a person access to education due to race or skin color; it applies to every person who chooses ignorance over mental growth. It refers to more than degrees and academic recognition, since some of the worst ignorance arises from places of supposed education, the very places that have proclaimed the absence of absolutes and moral relativity. It requires the use of logic and reason, of investigation and study, and of more than feelings, opinions, or politically correct ideology. Credibility comes from a discipline that studies, discovers, reasons, and learns to know and then to share what they demonstrate to be true, accurate, reasonable, and finally authoritative. The result of true intellectual prowess is not certainty; only closed minds claim certainty. Study and reason produce confidence.
To be credible requires effort, both to be truthful and trustworthy and to be reliable and accurate. I have little interest in hanging around people who are not credible, either because they’re liars and promise-breakers or because they’re lazy, ignorant, or presumptive. I am frustrated by the number and amount of unreliable sources of ideas and information and of dishonest, intentionally devious people, especially those in news, education, and politics. I don’t like them, and I don’t want to be one of them. I’d rather have credibility. What about you? I can think of nothing better than to have a reputation for credibility with other people, and that is why I have chosen credibility as another of the 4 keys to the Good Life.
Do you have influence? A decade or so ago, I read in a book by John Maxwell this concept: “Leadership is influence.” I have never forgotten it. Like most people, I had the idea that, to deal with people effectively, I had to learn how to control them. My idea of control was pretty low key, but it effected how I preached, taught, and counseled. For me, it was a subtle, beneficent kind of manipulation, but it was, nevertheless, manipulation. Even as I taught that manipulation was a serious kind of sin, I failed to see that my own concept of trying to change others, however well intended, was manipulative because I had never quite understood a better way. That better way is godly influence.
Godly influence is both effective and liberating. A person who is content, credible, and gracious (that concept is next) will change the lives of others. Such a life is exemplary, but it is more than a good model. Such a life is compellingly attractive; it is a life that others want to follow and copy. Jesus had such a life, and it is the life He commends to His followers. I have always been amazed at how little He spoke of sin; it was His righteous, loving life that humbled those who followed Him. Even if I cannot quite achieve His level of excellence, I want that kind of life.
In reality, each of us has influence. The question to ask is what kind? The answer is more than simply good or bad. On either side is an enormous range of ideas. They may be discouraging, depressing, and disabling or uplifting, inspiring, and encouraging. Do we wake people up or put them to sleep? Do we lead them to achieve or make it easy for them to do nothing? Do those around us feel smarter, wiser, and better informed, or do they feel stupid, foolish, and incapable of understanding anything. Do we humble them, humiliate them, or give them a sense of worth that fosters accomplishment? Boys often grow up to feel stupid and inept; girls often come to feel ugly and self-conscious. Such negative self-images arise from the way others—parents, siblings, teachers, peers, and even friends—have affected them, often unintentionally. Such is the power of influence.
In addition to the 4 concepts I’m discussing here, influence requires love; but, since love is so misunderstood, I am going to refer to several other concepts that are components of love. First, to influence people, we must respect them. To respect is to accept others as unique individual human beings, made in the image of God, and worthy of our regard. To respect a person, we must listen to them. Listening says that they and their concerns are as important as our own, and it counters our very human tendency toward unloving self-centeredness. To listen well, we must also try to understand and respond appropriately to their disclosures. Our job is not to argue against what a person says or try to fix what we decide is broken. We will understand first, and then disagree or offer advice when the one to whom we listen gives us permission. All of that is in obvious contrast to appease one’s own emotional or sensual needs, the self-centered and truly unloving ideas that often pass for love in our progressive, obsessive culture.
I have invested most of my life in ministry and in professions with goals most would see as changing people’s lives—teaching, counseling, problem-solving, and providing spiritual direction—yet I believe that the manner of gaining influence I describe here is the key even to these activities. Perhaps the difference is as simple as using “honey rather than vinegar,” of leading rather than driving, or of influencing rather than manipulating and trying to control. I have had to learn to give up control to be content, but being a godly influence makes life so much better. For me, influence is undeniably one of the 4 keys to the Good Life.
Are you gracious? Grace is the word that best characterizes what genuine Christianity is all about, both in the gift of God’s grace and in living by grace. Grace, perhaps more than any other concept, is what makes a life good. Grace is everything that most people imagine God is…NOT! Grace is everything that people imagine Christian people to be…NOT!
People often picture God as severe, authoritarian, and judgmental. This is the God of rules and punishments. Others suppose God to be grandfatherly, benign and harmless, generous but not making demands. Both concepts are wrong; like J. B. Philips wrote in Your God is Too Small, God is more complex than these simple extremes.
God is holy and demands holiness in His people. No one is holy enough, pure or sinless enough to be compatible with a perfectly holy and sinless Creator. God is love, and He loves His flawed creatures so much that He has arranged to rescue them from their sin. Jesus is the Way; He was uniquely conceived as a human child by the work of God’s Spirit. He brought divine perfection to earth, but He died as sinner’s death on a Roman cross, “to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in (Him) Jesus” (Romans 3:26).
This is the essence of God’s grace: “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:22-24). What is grace? Simply, it is the very definition of generosity. Some have spelled it out as “God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense.” In other words, God gives us what we do not deserve because Christ bore the punishment that He did not deserve. God by grace forgives our sin, when we trust Him, but He is able to forgive us without violating His own just nature, since His very Son bore the divine wrath that our sin deserves.
Since His grace saves, He wants us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18). He asks that our very words be gracious: “Let your conversation always be full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6). The Good Life is a life that is grown in the grace of God, grown to be more gracious, and so filled with grace that it shapes our interactions. God pours His grace on us, and grace should pour out of us. Yet, as significant as grace is, I am still learning what it means to be gracious. To be gracious is to be kind, patient, generous, merciful, forgiving, peaceable, gentle, and decent, everything we imagine Jesus was and is. Gracious folks will be contented, credible, and influential, even as they are confident, firm, and even assertive, just like Jesus. All of that is my idea of a really Good Life!
Now, may I ask you a question? How do you spend your time? People spend a substantial amount of their time working to get ahead or trying to have a good time, but I don’t believe that anything will make a better life than what I have described. A genuinely “good life” will be rich, filled with people who care, and blessed every day with joyful living, the very things we want most. Instead, so many of us settle for drudgery, trying to find self-worth in work or working just to have money for fun, striving to get ahead while falling behind as spouses, parents, and friends, and engaging in activities often destructive in the very areas where building and growth are preferable. Striving for the good life actually interferes with progress toward the Good Life.
Now, take a moment to consider the bigger picture. What is wrong with our world, our county, or our church? I believe, often, it is precisely the same: people striving for what they perceive as the good life but are destroying it. To what extent we can, we must oppose them; yet, I believe it would be better, where we can, to change them. Political campaigns, talk radio and advertising, and teaching have all become, primarily, coercive and frequently antagonistic. I believe we should vote, support good candidates, and oppose the bad ones. I have worked in radio, and I respect the power of communication to get out the message of things I value. I am a teacher and communicator, and people cannot learn if no one educates them.
However, we need more credibility so that people will listen and trust us enough to consider what we say. More grace may counter the common perception that we, conservatives or Christians, are cold and uncompassionate. By these means, we will gain influence and a less confrontive or manipulative method for changing the things we believe need to be changed. Yet, since the process comes with no guarantee for success, more contentment will enable us to work with patience, endure our failures, and maintain our confidence and optimism until we achieve our goals or the Lord comes and puts everything, finally, in order. In another place, I call this being a peacemaker, but here I simply say that this is the Good Life.
[1] What is the opposite of love? I have asked this question often, and typically I get one of two answers, either hate or apathy. When I reject both, groups I teach become quite puzzled. Hate is certainly an opposite of love, and not caring (apathy) contrasts caring (love). A better choice includes both; love is caring for others, and not caring for them occurs when a person cares more for himself or herself. Love’s opposite, then, is selfishness.
[2] Some would argue that Christians are often pessimistic, and I would agree, when they look around and see only evil and decline. Yet somehow evil has not prevailed in over 2000 years, since Christ. I believe many Christians have lived in hope, “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:5).
[3] Actually, I don’t believe in luck or good fortune. God ultimately manages the nature and direction of our lives, and the word for that is providence. “Providentially” is just such an unfamiliar, heavy-sounding word.
I’m not writing about either list. Instead, I will discuss four words that, to me, represent the substance of a lifestyle that can change the world. It has changed the world in the past, and it is still happening today, in some parts of the world. It is, in my opinion, the key to protecting our American way of life, but it is, more essentially, the key to the Good Life, a rich and exciting life that each of us can have and share with others. The four words that are the framework of the good life are contentment, credibility, influence, and grace.
Pontius Pilate asked the famous question, “What is truth?” A man approached Jesus, prior to that and said, “Good Rabbi,” probably just being respectful, and Jesus challenged him with, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Humans are concerned with what is true, or perhaps more accurately, who is right. God, for obvious reasons, is concerned with who is good. When we think of the “good life,” we mean a life that is good for us and to us. What God desires in a good life is a life that is good from His divine and perfect perspective. So, when I discuss the key to the Good Life, I am appealing to your desires, but I am necessarily and ultimately aiming at what He desires for us. In other words, when we work to achieve what He recommends, I believe we will finally achieve what we really desire. That is the Good Life!
Life is tough, and we are flawed. Whatever we think we want, whatever method we use to get what we want, we will find disappointment. The Good Life is one in which we are able to be content with ourselves and our situation. Contented people are basically happy and comfortable with their lives, so they are nice people to know. They are free to share, help, encourage, and love others. They become people others can trust because they have nothing to hide, have no need to seek advantage, and can be honest about themselves and their lives. Such people today are not only credible; they are incredible! As such, they gain great influence with the people around them, who admire them, want to be like them, and want what they have. Their credibility and influence are crucial for them to win people over to their faith, a faith based on grace, and a life that is gracious or winsome. Indeed, it is grace that is the source of their contentment, credibility, and influence.
Are you contented? Someone has suggested that three questions are the key to determining if a person’s life is working: “What do you want? What are you doing to get what you want? Is it {what you are doing to get what you want) working? Many of us want love, and many of us are failing miserably. Sometimes the problem is wanting the wrong thing, but often people are try to get what they want in counter-productive ways. Better methods are more likely to produce better results. If love is the goal, then loving methods will work best. Unfortunately, many seek love in ways that are selfish and unloving[1], and it is no wonder they fail.
Of course, some people want things that may not be admirable. Others may have good intentions but poor methods that lead to failure. Yet, even those with good goals and appropriate ways of gaining them still fail to fulfill their objectives. Most Christians, with an optimistic[2] view of life and confidence in a loving God, acknowledge that even the kindest, most moral people suffer at times. How then is contentment possible?
I like this line from Robert Browning: “God is in His heaven, and all is right with the world.” It summarizes the key to contentment. First, let me spell it out, without God in the formula. To be content, a person needs to have good goals, appropriate ways of achieving them, and a character or lifestyle that permits few regrets. Even if such people fail to accomplish and acquire all that they may have wanted, I believe most will be content, to a great degree. What we do to get what we want affects more than our success; it governs how others see us and how we see ourselves. Contentment involves not just success but succeeding or failing without shame. Success that causes people to despise us is a lonely kind of success; shame and failure together are lonelier still. Neither leads to contentment; neither is worth the price of loneliness and contempt.
The Bible says (I Timothy 6:6), “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” Since God grants forgiveness through Jesus Christ, we have the opportunity to remove the shame that all of us acquire because none of us is perfect. The element that God brings to our ability to be content is this removal of the consequences of our mistakes and an added measure of perspective. I believe God blesses our right goals and right methods, both in the present with contentment, and in the unending future with blessings beyond comprehension for our doing so. In all of that, godliness with contentment is indeed great gain. I believe that is why the Apostle Paul could say, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Nothing makes life better than godliness with contentment, which is why it is one of the 4 keys to the Good Life.
Are you credible? Do you even want to be credible? Actually, I think you do? Nobody wants to be doubted, disbelieved, or not trusted. Perhaps, it is easier to argue for being credible than for being truthful or honest. So many things have led us to question the value of those qualities, or at least, the benefits of practicing them. Isn’t that ironic, though. People want to be believed and trusted, but they don’t see the value of being truthful and trustworthy. In fact, who screams the loudest when someone questions his or her veracity? Typically, it is the person who lies and has been caught lying.
It takes a measure of maturity, I will allow, to be falsely accused of lying or anything else and not to rise in one’s own defense. However, if we have worked toward the contentment I just described, then it will be easier to rest in the knowledge of our own integrity. I know the truth; God knows the truth. Those who know me will believe and trust me because I have become credible, as they have come to observe me, through many experiences, over an extended period of time. I believe that there are few other achievements in life comparable to having a good, credible reputation.
I was lucky[3]. I gained an appreciation for the value of truth, honesty, and keeping promises when I was young. I also heard the story of Solomon, who could have had anything he asked from God and chose wisdom, I also wanted to be wise. I know of nothing wiser than being a person of truth and integrity.
Of course, there is another element to being credible, and that is knowledge. Today, many think that truth is relative, and there are no absolutes. Even science and history have been corrupted by this empty, pointless philosophy. The result, I believe, besides moral relativism, is ignorance. With the progress of science and technology, we live in an era of nearly unlimited access to knowledge and information; yet, Americans commonly finish school and hope never to have to pursue another hour of education, read another book, or learn anything new. Commencement, to many, is the end and not the beginning, what the word actually means.
“A mind is a terrible thing to waste” applies to more than denying a person access to education due to race or skin color; it applies to every person who chooses ignorance over mental growth. It refers to more than degrees and academic recognition, since some of the worst ignorance arises from places of supposed education, the very places that have proclaimed the absence of absolutes and moral relativity. It requires the use of logic and reason, of investigation and study, and of more than feelings, opinions, or politically correct ideology. Credibility comes from a discipline that studies, discovers, reasons, and learns to know and then to share what they demonstrate to be true, accurate, reasonable, and finally authoritative. The result of true intellectual prowess is not certainty; only closed minds claim certainty. Study and reason produce confidence.
To be credible requires effort, both to be truthful and trustworthy and to be reliable and accurate. I have little interest in hanging around people who are not credible, either because they’re liars and promise-breakers or because they’re lazy, ignorant, or presumptive. I am frustrated by the number and amount of unreliable sources of ideas and information and of dishonest, intentionally devious people, especially those in news, education, and politics. I don’t like them, and I don’t want to be one of them. I’d rather have credibility. What about you? I can think of nothing better than to have a reputation for credibility with other people, and that is why I have chosen credibility as another of the 4 keys to the Good Life.
Do you have influence? A decade or so ago, I read in a book by John Maxwell this concept: “Leadership is influence.” I have never forgotten it. Like most people, I had the idea that, to deal with people effectively, I had to learn how to control them. My idea of control was pretty low key, but it effected how I preached, taught, and counseled. For me, it was a subtle, beneficent kind of manipulation, but it was, nevertheless, manipulation. Even as I taught that manipulation was a serious kind of sin, I failed to see that my own concept of trying to change others, however well intended, was manipulative because I had never quite understood a better way. That better way is godly influence.
Godly influence is both effective and liberating. A person who is content, credible, and gracious (that concept is next) will change the lives of others. Such a life is exemplary, but it is more than a good model. Such a life is compellingly attractive; it is a life that others want to follow and copy. Jesus had such a life, and it is the life He commends to His followers. I have always been amazed at how little He spoke of sin; it was His righteous, loving life that humbled those who followed Him. Even if I cannot quite achieve His level of excellence, I want that kind of life.
In reality, each of us has influence. The question to ask is what kind? The answer is more than simply good or bad. On either side is an enormous range of ideas. They may be discouraging, depressing, and disabling or uplifting, inspiring, and encouraging. Do we wake people up or put them to sleep? Do we lead them to achieve or make it easy for them to do nothing? Do those around us feel smarter, wiser, and better informed, or do they feel stupid, foolish, and incapable of understanding anything. Do we humble them, humiliate them, or give them a sense of worth that fosters accomplishment? Boys often grow up to feel stupid and inept; girls often come to feel ugly and self-conscious. Such negative self-images arise from the way others—parents, siblings, teachers, peers, and even friends—have affected them, often unintentionally. Such is the power of influence.
In addition to the 4 concepts I’m discussing here, influence requires love; but, since love is so misunderstood, I am going to refer to several other concepts that are components of love. First, to influence people, we must respect them. To respect is to accept others as unique individual human beings, made in the image of God, and worthy of our regard. To respect a person, we must listen to them. Listening says that they and their concerns are as important as our own, and it counters our very human tendency toward unloving self-centeredness. To listen well, we must also try to understand and respond appropriately to their disclosures. Our job is not to argue against what a person says or try to fix what we decide is broken. We will understand first, and then disagree or offer advice when the one to whom we listen gives us permission. All of that is in obvious contrast to appease one’s own emotional or sensual needs, the self-centered and truly unloving ideas that often pass for love in our progressive, obsessive culture.
I have invested most of my life in ministry and in professions with goals most would see as changing people’s lives—teaching, counseling, problem-solving, and providing spiritual direction—yet I believe that the manner of gaining influence I describe here is the key even to these activities. Perhaps the difference is as simple as using “honey rather than vinegar,” of leading rather than driving, or of influencing rather than manipulating and trying to control. I have had to learn to give up control to be content, but being a godly influence makes life so much better. For me, influence is undeniably one of the 4 keys to the Good Life.
Are you gracious? Grace is the word that best characterizes what genuine Christianity is all about, both in the gift of God’s grace and in living by grace. Grace, perhaps more than any other concept, is what makes a life good. Grace is everything that most people imagine God is…NOT! Grace is everything that people imagine Christian people to be…NOT!
People often picture God as severe, authoritarian, and judgmental. This is the God of rules and punishments. Others suppose God to be grandfatherly, benign and harmless, generous but not making demands. Both concepts are wrong; like J. B. Philips wrote in Your God is Too Small, God is more complex than these simple extremes.
God is holy and demands holiness in His people. No one is holy enough, pure or sinless enough to be compatible with a perfectly holy and sinless Creator. God is love, and He loves His flawed creatures so much that He has arranged to rescue them from their sin. Jesus is the Way; He was uniquely conceived as a human child by the work of God’s Spirit. He brought divine perfection to earth, but He died as sinner’s death on a Roman cross, “to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in (Him) Jesus” (Romans 3:26).
This is the essence of God’s grace: “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:22-24). What is grace? Simply, it is the very definition of generosity. Some have spelled it out as “God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense.” In other words, God gives us what we do not deserve because Christ bore the punishment that He did not deserve. God by grace forgives our sin, when we trust Him, but He is able to forgive us without violating His own just nature, since His very Son bore the divine wrath that our sin deserves.
Since His grace saves, He wants us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18). He asks that our very words be gracious: “Let your conversation always be full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6). The Good Life is a life that is grown in the grace of God, grown to be more gracious, and so filled with grace that it shapes our interactions. God pours His grace on us, and grace should pour out of us. Yet, as significant as grace is, I am still learning what it means to be gracious. To be gracious is to be kind, patient, generous, merciful, forgiving, peaceable, gentle, and decent, everything we imagine Jesus was and is. Gracious folks will be contented, credible, and influential, even as they are confident, firm, and even assertive, just like Jesus. All of that is my idea of a really Good Life!
Now, may I ask you a question? How do you spend your time? People spend a substantial amount of their time working to get ahead or trying to have a good time, but I don’t believe that anything will make a better life than what I have described. A genuinely “good life” will be rich, filled with people who care, and blessed every day with joyful living, the very things we want most. Instead, so many of us settle for drudgery, trying to find self-worth in work or working just to have money for fun, striving to get ahead while falling behind as spouses, parents, and friends, and engaging in activities often destructive in the very areas where building and growth are preferable. Striving for the good life actually interferes with progress toward the Good Life.
Now, take a moment to consider the bigger picture. What is wrong with our world, our county, or our church? I believe, often, it is precisely the same: people striving for what they perceive as the good life but are destroying it. To what extent we can, we must oppose them; yet, I believe it would be better, where we can, to change them. Political campaigns, talk radio and advertising, and teaching have all become, primarily, coercive and frequently antagonistic. I believe we should vote, support good candidates, and oppose the bad ones. I have worked in radio, and I respect the power of communication to get out the message of things I value. I am a teacher and communicator, and people cannot learn if no one educates them.
However, we need more credibility so that people will listen and trust us enough to consider what we say. More grace may counter the common perception that we, conservatives or Christians, are cold and uncompassionate. By these means, we will gain influence and a less confrontive or manipulative method for changing the things we believe need to be changed. Yet, since the process comes with no guarantee for success, more contentment will enable us to work with patience, endure our failures, and maintain our confidence and optimism until we achieve our goals or the Lord comes and puts everything, finally, in order. In another place, I call this being a peacemaker, but here I simply say that this is the Good Life.
[1] What is the opposite of love? I have asked this question often, and typically I get one of two answers, either hate or apathy. When I reject both, groups I teach become quite puzzled. Hate is certainly an opposite of love, and not caring (apathy) contrasts caring (love). A better choice includes both; love is caring for others, and not caring for them occurs when a person cares more for himself or herself. Love’s opposite, then, is selfishness.
[2] Some would argue that Christians are often pessimistic, and I would agree, when they look around and see only evil and decline. Yet somehow evil has not prevailed in over 2000 years, since Christ. I believe many Christians have lived in hope, “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:5).
[3] Actually, I don’t believe in luck or good fortune. God ultimately manages the nature and direction of our lives, and the word for that is providence. “Providentially” is just such an unfamiliar, heavy-sounding word.
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