For the genuine Christ-follower, there is ALWAYS plenty to be thankful for. The most
significant ‘object of thankfulness’ is of course the gift of salvation, given freely by God to
all who will choose to trust in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. A sacrifice that is characterized
by His having taken our sins to the cross with Him, so that those sins would be crucified –
made to be dead – so that they would no longer rule over us. In doing this, He declares for
us a ‘not guilty’ verdict. In spite of the sins that we invariably commit, God, because of our
trust and faith in Jesus and what He did, and Who He is, doesn’t allow the sin to separate
us from Him any longer. He sends His Holy Spirit to live in us, and He guarantees for us the gift of
eternal life with Him in eternity. That is a lot to be thankful for!


Another big thing to be thankful for – when we receive Christ, He gives us a huge jolt of
PURPOSE, as God prescribes for us a DESTINY for our lives. In fulfilling God’s destiny
for us, we find meaning and significance in who we are and Whose we are. As we noted in
this past Sunday’s message, Destiny is a focused and purposeful lifestyle committed to the
generation of something much bigger than myself, and leading to the continuous
betterment of those around me. (Bud’s unauthorized definition…) This sense of destiny is
what makes life really worth living.


As we noted in the case of Zechariah this past Sunday – whatever it is He has for us, there
is a goal. There is something out there that He is looking for from each of us that’s going to
give us the opportunity one day to hear “Well done, good and faithful servant”. The big
thing about Zechariah (and wife Elisabeth) is that he lived a consistently obedient life for
many years before God even revealed to him the ultimate destiny of his life (becoming the
father of John the Baptist…) Zechariah was a very good man.


A lot of times, we just think, ‘well, if I just DO GOOD. Then I’ll be alright in my
relationship with Jesus. He’ll be pleased.’ Well, that’s all good and sounds great, but you
know what? For many Christians, you know what ‘DOING GOOD’ really means? It means
simply ‘NOT DOING ANYTHING BAD’. Think about that. We might think that doing
something good is simply the absence of doing something bad. Here is an example: “I
didn’t speak up when that person said something really smart-alecky to me. I didn’t say
what I was really thinking, which was not very nice. So I guess I’m doing good, right?”
No, you’re not BEING GOOD.


You’re just withholding an emotional reaction – a reaction that likely would have been
BAD if you had acted on it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a positive that you withheld that
negative reaction, but you were simply avoiding something BAD. You might ask yourself,
‘How did I add value to the situation?’ or ‘How did I add value to that other individual?’
Holding your tongue is not the ultimate goal. Saying something in return that builds them
up and speaks to the Kingdom of God, that’s what doing something good is about.
Again, to make this clear- we may think that because we don’t do anything bad, that we’re
doing good. But – the reality is you’re just not doing anything bad. That’s NEUTRALITY.
God did not call for neutrality in our lives. As a matter of fact, as we look at what Jesus
said to the churches in the beginning of Revelation, what did He say about the church at
Laodicea? He said, ‘because you’re neutral, you are lukewarm and because you are
lukewarm, Jesus said I’m to going stick my finger down my throat and just throw it up at
you.”


That’s why we often say around Integrity Church, that the term ‘passive Christian life’ is
an oxymoron. Those words don’t go together. They contradict each other. A passive,
Christian life is where you say, “OK, I’m going to make it by just not doing anything bad.”
And that’s not what living this life for Jesus looks like.


A lot of times, you have to recognize that doing good in the Kingdom of God is much more
than avoiding doing bad. Does that make sense? The bottom line is that so often ‘doing
what we think is good’ is just not good enough!