Familiar With Goodness
“The report of your obedience has reached everyone. Therefore, I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise about what is good, and yet innocent about what is evil.” Romans 16:19
What if we became so familiar with the goodness of God that anything contrary to His character felt foreign to us? In Romans 16:19, Paul commends the believers’ obedience, then urges them to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. What a beautiful invitation here: to cultivate a heart so deeply acquainted with the character of God, His goodness, that evil finds no comfortable space within it. We become wiser in the goodness of God by spending intimate time with Him — learning His Word, following His ways, and applying what He teaches and reveals to us — by practicing what pleases Him. As we grow familiar with God’s holiness, our desires naturally begin to change; our character begins to align more with His. We learn to delight in truth, purity, mercy, and that which encourages life, rather than death. Our discernment grows from knowing and loving Jesus closely — an intimate familiarity that is pivotal when something harmful, destructive, or evil arrives dressed up as something harmless. An event, tradition, image, or form of entertainment may be widely accepted and still require close, prayerful examination. We can and should ask: What am I learning to enjoy? What does this invite me to honor? Is it making my heart more receptive to God’s goodness and character or more comfortable with what opposes it? Sometimes pressure can even come from fellow believers when Christians, who we respect, participate freely; we may question our hesitation. Yet another person’s comfort cannot replace our responsibility to seek God through His word and intimate prayer. We can love one another, remain humble, and still take our own obedience seriously.
Innocence toward evil means refusing to become at home with it. We can recognize its presence without cultivating an appetite or desire for it. We need not practice enjoying anything that glorifies darkness or makes light of potential, spiritual harm. This reaches beyond what we decline. A heart growing wise in goodness must turn away from gossip, pride, dishonesty, contempt, judgment, worry, — even within Christian company. Holiness shapes both our choices and our treatment of people whose choices are different from ours. As we draw closer to Jesus, may His goodness become the familiar and the comfortable in our lives.
May what grieves God increasingly grieve us and what delights Him become the foundation of all of our joy. May we take time to thank our Heavenly Father for His never-ending goodness and for continually inviting us to become more familiar with His character. Let Him shape our affections so that what opposes Him feels completely foreign to us and our spirit. We can ask Him for divine discernment when compromise feels familiar and comfortable, for courage when obedience feels difficult and lonely, and for more humility toward others who live differently. We can choose to love what He loves and hate what He hates, and we can ask Him for help to love others the way He does.