Being Good and Doing Good

Acts 10:38(NIV)

And you know that God anointed Jesus Christ of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

James 2:14, 17(NIV)

V. 14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has not deeds? Can faith save them?

V. 17 in the same way, faith by itself, if not accomplished by action, is dead.

Being good and doing good

Being good – Is more about internal qualities, character traits, and value that contribute to positive behavior, moral qualities. Being someone of faith goes to church, read their Bible pray, all these things we must do.

We all need to pursue to be the best people inwardly that we can be, but man has always had moral issues. That’s one reason Jesus Christ died.

We should not be content with Being good people, nothing wrong with that end itself. We can go our remaining days pursuing perfection and never accomplish anything of outward value.

Some good people:

1. Never help anyone else

2. Never really pursue personal accomplishments.

3. Education is not important to some

4. Preach the gospel but not personal success

5. Are just waiting to go to heaven

Doing good – Actions or deeds that are beneficial, kind, or helpful to others. Doing good is living a sacrificial life in defense of the oppressed in our society.

This is not to say that we should not strive or desire to be as good as possible, but being good does not impact humanity as much as doing good, God is in us and with us to do good, we are God’s hands and feet.

We should thrive to be good and do good. but I would choose helping others more than worrying about my own image, Jesus cared less about his reputation that he set down with alcoholics and was called a alcoholic, but Jesus did not care about public perception of being good didn’t matter as much to Jesus.

Jesus cared about his reputation, but that was not a priority to him.

Acts 10:38 says that Jesus went around doing good, healing those who were OPPRESSED by the devil, they also can work through people and systems.

Healing (Strongs Concordance) – to rescue them or save them, cure them and make them whole, to free them.

Oppressed (Strongs Concordance) to have dominion over, to treat harshly, have control over.

Devil (Strongs Concordance) can be any person used by the devils to bring about the devil’s purpose or the devil himself.

Ephesians 6:12

For we wrestled not against flesh and blood, but against but against principalities against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

When we read Ephesians 6:12 it seems like the Apostle Paul is saying we should just pray and the oppressors will go away, but Jesus also confronted the spiritual wickedness in high places in his day, but Jesus knew there was a force behind them but the wicked oppressors had to yield to that force.

That was not just spiritual to the Apostle Paul, he had many encounters with evil people and oppressive people.

Acts 4:18-19 They told the Apostle Paul and John not to preach Christ anymore. But they continued to preach facing persecution. So, we should pray and resist, confront if we have to.

Oppressors will not just stop being oppressors unless, with God’s help with oppose them.

Aoesop fable, “The Wolf and the Lamb”, it talked about how a tyranny don’t need a pretext for his or her tyranny, sometimes you can’t bargain with an adversary.

Part of the good we do should be opposing the Oppressors of our day, standing for the hopeless and helpless, being a voice even if our voice is one, taking action and making sacrifice when and how we can.

Being good and doing good Jesus was a good person actually a great person and he was anointed to do good, it didn’t say Jesus wasn’t a good person, his being good resulted in him doing good, opposing the oppressors of his day.

If you are successful at anything, a good deed would be to help others become successful.

The Anointing is not on us just to feel good or be good, the Anointing is on us to impact, so just like Jesus was Anointed to do good, so are we.