The Advantage Christians Have in Doing Good
Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”
You might be asking this same question after the reading yesterday. What good is it to be a good person? What good is it to do what is right, if we are saved by what we believe by faith and not by our works?
There are a lot of reasons if you think about it.
Out of love for God, we want to do what He wants. We want to do things His way to show Him how right we think He is about everything.
Out of love for other people, we want to do what He wants. God loves your neighbor and your friends and even your enemies more than you could ever hope to love them. By doing good deeds to all of them, you are participating in God’s love being manifested to them.
We do good things out of love for God’s name and reputation. While Paul said a few sentences back that God’s name is hated among the Gentiles because of some people, God’s name is loved and revered because of other people. How many times has someone said to you “I don’t know about the church, but I know Jesus loves me because of what you did.” ?!?!
Though every one of us may mess up Christianity, God is still true. Just like Beethoven still wrote music even if all the music is burned up. Just like Washington Square Mall was awesome in 1979, even if it isn’t so much today. Just because people don’t live out God’s ways doesn’t nullify the greatness of God.
That is the way a lot of people think today. Because Jesus isn’t powerful enough to defend His own honor, and so many people are defacing Him, people choose to not follow Him. THAT is the ultimate reason why we should be open and obvious that we are Christians today. We can let Him live out His life in us and show off His true ways as the world around us wonders what advantage there is to being a Christian.