The Fruit Of The Spirit
By Sandy Simpson

Lesson 1 - Love
Lesson 2 - Joy
Lesson 3 - Peace
Lesson 4 - Patience
Lesson 5 - Kindness
Lesson 6 - Goodness
Lesson 7 - Faithfulness
Lesson 8 - Gentleness
Lesson 9 - Self-control


LESSON 6 - GOODNESS

Biblical Examples Of Goodness

There are many examples in the Bible of people who had, because of their relationship with God, goodness as part of their character.  We are not talking about people being basically good for the Bible says that men are basically wicked.

Jer 17:9   The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (NIV)
Jer 17:9   The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked: who can know it? (KJV)
Mr 10:18   "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No-one is good-- except God alone.

But when a man has believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and been born again of the Holy Spirit, he is changed.  He then begins to show the fruit of the Spirit, one attribute of which is goodness.  When men put their faith in God, His character shows through their lives in righteousness, truth and goodness. 

There are two men that I want to focus on whom the Bible specifically states had goodness as part of their character.  The first is Abel, son of Adam.  He is called a righteous man.  A righteous man is a man who is right or good.

Heb. 11:4   By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

As we see from the short life of Abel, a good man is a man of obedience and faith.  Abel brought a blood sacrifice that he knew God wanted.  Cain did not.  An obedient son is called a good son, a disobedient son is called an evil son.  God saw the faith of Abel that caused him to be obedient to God.  Adam and Eve, his mother and father, had disobeyed God.  Abel was the first man to obey God fully.  And by that faith his righteousness still speaks today.  The story of Cain and Abel is a story of one so who was obedient, and one who was disobedient.  It is the story of one son who, when God commended him for his obedience, continued to walk with God; and one son who when disciplined by God further rebelled and became the first murderer in the history of mankind.  So in this one story we have the knowledge of good and evil showing itself in one man who chose to follow God, and one who chose to follow sin.  The blood of Abel crying out from the ground was ultimately answered in the sacrifice of God's only Son, Jesus Christ in His death on the cross to purchased pardon for all sinners who would place their faith in Him, just as Abel placed his faith in God.

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