If only God is good … how are we to practice the fruit of the Spirit, goodness? Nicole and Sharon ponder what it means to be filled with the fruit of goodness and then apply it practically to daily life. Join them as they study what God has to say about this unique fruit of the Spirit.

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Speaker 1 (00:01):

Welcome to a podcast designed to bring biblical encouragement to your weary soul. We are so glad you’re listening and we pray God blesses you and strengthens you in your walk with him. The Sweet Selah Moments Podcast is brought to you by the cooperative efforts of Sweet Selah Ministries and Word Radio. Sit back and enjoy.

Nicole (00:28):

Welcome to the Sweet Selah Moments Podcast. This is episode 103, the Uniqueness of Goodness. We’re examining the Fruit of the Spirit, one fruit at a time. Sharon, what makes goodness so unique?

Sharon (00:41):

Okay, well, I actually think goodness is the hardest of the fruit to define Nicole. It’s, it’s tricky because the Bible makes it clear that only God is truly good for starters. And what is good anyway? How is it uniquely different from love and joy and kindness and patience? They’re all good too. So this is what I think. I think goodness is an inner state of rightness with God that exhibits itself in countless ways and actions. But it’s unique in that, like with the other fruits, like patience. I can act patiently even if I don’t feel patient. (Nicole: Yeah) You know, I do that with children sometimes. When they were little, I was aggravated cause they were slow, but I acted patiently on the outside. (Yes) So that I was nice to them. Huh. Which inwardly, I wasn’t so much. I’d be like hurry up. I don’t think you can do that with goodness. (Mm-hmm) I don’t think you can act goodness without being good. I feel like that is it. It’s innately part of who you are and we either are inwardly right with God or we’re not. (Mmm) So that’s what I think is unique about it and it’s why it was tricky trying to work on a podcast about it. (Yeah) You know, but here we are. So, well let’s start with the dictionary. Now that you’ve heard my sort of fumbling attempts at describing it, tell me what the definition of goodness is from that perspective.

Nicole (02:02):

Yeah. So dictionary.com says ‘it is the quality of being morally good or virtuous, or the quality or state of being good’. And it said ‘kindly feeling’ so, okay. Goodness blossoms into feeling kindly. Um, the Greek word means ‘uprightness of heart and life’. So I looked up the word good also and here’s what I found, um, ‘that which is morally right; righteousness; goodness equals kindness’. So, as far as our inward goodness, I think sometimes we can pretend to be good a little bit, but I don’t think it’s as sustainable to fake, you know? (Sharon: Right) Like you can fake patience for a little bit. Cause at some point our hearts will be revealed and with it our motives. So if we’re not good with God, we really can’t fake goodness for long.

Sharon (02:47):

No, we can...