The Best or the Good?

I recently saw a bumper sticker that read; “The best things in life aren’t things.” What a great reminder that God wants the best for us which is not something but Someone – Himself! The problem is that we are so often distracted from the best by the good. Oswald chambers observed in My Utmost for His Highest that “The good is always the enemy of the best.” Adam and Eve first experienced this lesson when they chose to eat from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil rather than The Tree of Life. Their choice resulted in self-consciousness and the Spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder (S.A.D.D) with which we all are afflicted to this day.

Our S.A.D.D state has left us so self-centered that we have even attempted to make the Gospel into just another good self-improvement program. C.S. Lewis remarked in The Weight of Glory; “If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love.” The Gospel is not about self-improvement but rather God’s transforming love.

Christianity involves relationships; a relationship with God and one another. God has called us to be living witnesses of His love. We do so by following Jesus and sharing His love with one another. This is how we experience the abundant life God intends for us. (John 10:10)

God’s best,

Steve