GraceNotes: For Goodness' Sake (December 7, 2018)

All our goodness flows from grace. One of our favorite illusions is that broken, self-consumed people like us can still spontaneously do noble things out of some “inner light” we claim to have. I have followed one too many Volvos bearing tattered bumper stickers urging “Random Acts of Kindness.” Unless the Holy Spirit has vanished from the universe, there are no such things as random acts of kindness.  Unrecognized among the myriad ways we interact with each other—some petty, some brutal—are those kindnesses that first formed in the mind of God and reached our world through common grace.  If ever we are good, it’s only because God’s goodness flows through us. Be available this day for promptings—Spirit-formed and Spirit-led—that testify we aren’t left to spin alone on this unhappy planet.  There is no kindness apart from the great grace shown to us in Christ, and known to us because His Spirit still moves among us. So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

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