A rich young ruler once asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16). Christ’s answer was short, but full of points to consider: “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments” (verse 17).
Let’s start there. Paul listed “goodness” when describing the fruit of the Spirit, and here Jesus was emphasizing something important—that kind of goodness is exclusive to God and God alone. If the fruit of the Spirit produces goodness in God’s people, that goodness has to come from God, not us. It’s not something we can produce in ourselves apart from Him.
If that sounds a bit extreme, it’s because we use the word good pretty loosely in English. We can have a good day, eat a good meal with a good friend, do a good job on an assignment, or perform a good deed—all very human actions that people perform every day without access to God’s Spirit.
But that’s not the kind of goodness Jesus and Paul had in mind. The Greek words used here for “good” and “goodness” refer to something that is intrinsically good—that is, something that is wholesome and upright down to its very core. Your sandwich might be good, but it’s not that kind of good.
Jesus told the young ruler, “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.” That’s the key—and Paul knew it. In a letter to the Romans, he affirmed, “Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12). God’s commandments show us what goodness looks like in action. They’re a reflection of the very character of God, providing us with the fence posts and boundaries we need in order to live a godly and righteous life.
But there’s a problem—not with God’s law, but with us. Paul knew that too. He wrote, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. … I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good” (verses 18-21).
Our human nature struggles with goodness. It doesn’t come naturally—in fact, the opposite tends to come more naturally. Even when we want to do the right thing, it’s easy to find ourselves doing the wrong thing instead. Sometimes we don’t know what the right thing is, and sometimes we don’t have the willpower to put what’s right above what we want. It’s easy to justify and reason our way around God’s standards when it’s convenient for us, and that’s a symptom of the bigger problem Paul was writing about: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells.”
If we’re trying to grow the fruit of the Spirit, that’s going to be a problem.
Goodness isn’t just about doing good. It’s about being good—all the way to the very core of our being. It’s about doing the right thing not just because we have to, but because we want to—because that’s just who we are. That’s the goodness God has, and it’s the goodness He’ll help us develop as we tap into His Spirit: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
Did you catch that? Seeing us walk in good works has always been God’s plan for us. But He also knew that it wasn’t a goal we’d reach overnight. We need help—and help is exactly what He gives.
Paul urged the brethren, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2). God has a radical plan to remodel us from the inside out—to transform us by removing what doesn’t belong and reshaping us to have His character and His goodness.
That process isn’t easy or comfortable. Our human nature is going to resist those changes. It’s going to push back and refuse to give up quietly. While God’s Spirit makes these changes possible, the process is still going to require effort from us. Paul describes part of that transformation as our learning to “abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. … Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:9, 21).
But before we can do what is good, it’s vital that we first know what is good. And that’s not as easy as it sounds.
Satan the devil is a trickster, a liar and a deceiver. He was the one who “helped” Eve to see that the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden was “good for food … pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6). And he’s been causing similar trouble ever since. He knows how to disguise himself as “an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), and he knows how to make the wrong things look right.
The good news is that his imitation game isn’t perfect—we can learn to spot his counterfeits if we stay close to God. “All Scripture,” we’re told, “is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Satan is a convincing con artist, but the Bible gives us the tools we need to see through his forgeries. The more time we spend with God’s Word—the more we allow God to show us what good really looks like—the better equipped we’ll be to put that knowledge into action. “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8-10).
What does that look like, exactly? That’s a question David asked and answered a long time ago, and his answer, found in Psalm 34:12-14, is still true today:
Who is the man who desires life,
And loves many days, that he may see good?
Keep your tongue from evil,
And your lips from speaking deceit.
Depart from evil and do good;
Seek peace and pursue it.
It’s not a complicated set of instructions, but it drives home the point that goodness isn’t passive. Internal goodness produces good actions—good must be done, peace must be sought and pursued. Evil and deception must be actively resisted. None of it just happens on its own. It has to start at an internal level.
At the beginning of this Journey, we explored what Jesus had to say about that: “Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:16-20).
What’s inside eventually finds its way outside. As we let God show us through His Word and through His actions what goodness looks like, we can strive to make that same goodness part of us, letting God’s Spirit shape and mold us to be more like our Creator.
Like every aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, goodness isn’t going to come naturally to us. It’s going to take effort on our part to emulate the perfect example of our Father, but we do have those encouraging words from Christ Himself: “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.”
The closer we get to God, the better we’re going to be at growing the kind of fruit He’s looking for in His trees.
