Some people believe being a good person will get them to heaven. Good deeds alone don’t lead to everlasting life, but faith in God leads to a beautiful life beyond this earth. Faith in God can’t be replaced by good deeds. Faith is believing in God and trusting in His goodness. Remember to include God in your daily decisions to grow your relationship with Him.
The word that stood out to me in the text (Isaiah 57:10) was “so-called”. I wanted to find out what these so-called good deeds were so I read the whole chapter to get a deeper understanding of the context.
I found out that God, through the prophet Isaiah, was referring to idol worship.
Idol worship was an issue amongst the Israelites at the time. It is fair to say that many of the practices they were taking part in are things that we consider today as completely evil. For example, sacrificing their children as an act of worship to the idols.
That is an extreme gesture of worship don’t you think? I would like to propose to you that when they were sacrificing their children, they probably thought that what they were doing was good.
Their dedication was noble however their conviction was lacking. They had given up on trusting the True God who had proven to be faithful and always willing to supply for their needs. They had kept their eyes off the target and become impatient, dissatisfied and ungreatful. Hence they started transferring their worship to other things that they felt were more tangible.
Sometimes I feel like the Israelites. I feel impatient, dissatisfied and ungrateful when I stop reminding myself of how good God is and how He has done innumerable wonderous miracles in my life.
When I am in that state, I usually turn to my idols – snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, gospel music, work.
These are my modern day “so-called” good deeds as they are things that you would consider to be innocent however, when placed above God, they lead us to sin.
So what is the solution? As the devotional said, we need to replace our so-called good deeds with faith in God. This means we have to come to the realisation that we are helpless without God. Our deeds will continue to be “so-called” until we put our trust in the One who gives us “every good and perfect gift” (James 1:17).
This can be done by replacing the time spent doing the “so-called” good deeds with communion with God. This can be done through prayer, bible study, singing, Christian films, listening to sermons, etc.
The more we spend time with God, the easier it will be to do what is good in his sight.
Comments