Is God Nice Or Is God Good? by ‘brother bill’
The question raises one of the most important distinctions in modern Christianity: God is infinitely good, but goodness and niceness are not the same thing. Niceness seeks to avoid discomfort. Goodness seeks what is right. Niceness wants to be liked. Holiness demands to be obeyed. Niceness may conceal the truth to preserve a relationship. Biblical love speaks the truth to save a soul. But, there is an equally important warning: Jesus was not cruel, and Christians must never confuse rudeness with righteousness. He possessed perfect love, perfect judgment, perfect mercy, and perfect holiness. The question is not whether Jesus was pleasant. He often was. The question is whether being pleasant was ever more important to Him than the obedience of doing His Father’s will. Scripture gives us the answer. Jesus was not always nice. He was always righteous.
Matthew 23:27–28 — Jesus confronts religious hypocrisy
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Jesus did not congratulate religious leaders for their respectable appearances. He exposed the contradiction between their public righteousness and their private corruption. A merely nice Jesus might have said, “We have different approaches to spirituality.” The biblical Jesus called them hypocrites.
Matthew 23:33 — Jesus warns of judgment; Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Those words would hardly survive a modern church committee on maintaining a welcoming atmosphere. But notice whom Jesus confronted religious leaders who claimed authority to teach God’s people while misleading them. Jesus was often most severe toward those who claimed to represent God but misrepresented His character.
So, who is Jesus and who must his disciples be? Meek not weak, strength under control, not strength out of control or self serving, but under God’s graceful control.
Love is sacrificial, non reciprocal regardless of the circumstances. Blessings on your greatest adventure.
brother bill/dad
