The imago dei means that we are made to be like God. God is good; we are made to be good. [1] Our practice of the better arises from our nature, just as it arises from God's nature. But after the fall (Genesis 3--the originating sin of egotism/ethnocentrism), our goodness is activated by a deliberate choice, not by something operating automatically inside us. We practice the better by acts of the will to do so.
Practicing the better means recognizing original righteousness as our essence and claiming it as our inheritance---and then, praying for grace to be who we are through never-ending circumstances every day where we must choose how we will live. Practicing the better is a response to the promoting of the Spirit to be an instrument of God's peace (shalom) moment by moment.
This is not wishful thinking, it is faithful living in congruence with what it means to be human--to be 'good' in the present as God declared us to be in the beginning. We are made for good--made to practice the better.
[1] Take any other attribute of God, and put it into this sentence, "God is _____; we are made to be _______."
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Oboedire
"Practicing the Better: Good at the Start" by J. Steven HarperPracticing the better was God's initial and repeated act in the beginning of creation. Seven times the writer of Genesis uses the word 'good' to describe what God was making.In the Hebrew and Greek languages, 'good' is a many-splendored word. In both languages God's goodness is the definer of everything else that is good because everyone and everything comes from God and returns to God. To be 'good' is, therefore, to be like God in character and conduct. So, each time the writer of Genesis says, "it was good," it means that the named entity was in conformity to God's nature and will.
Every aspect of creation expresses (manifests, represents) the practice of the better. The cumulative effect of God's creative acts generated a crescendo of goodness which ended in the statement that what God had made was VERY good. The first creation story is saying, " Nothing was amiss; everything existed exactly as God intended. [1]
Practicing the better arises from the theology of original righteousness. [2] Sadly, some Christians start with original sin (Genesis 3), but the Bible does not begin there. The beginning is goodness (Genesis 1 & 2), and that is where we are to begin in seeing how we are meant to live.
Original righteousness is the theological base for practicing the better. It is the primal vision of who we are and how God intends life to be. It is also the ignition of our moral consciousness and the compassion which emerges from it, as we move through the days of our lives celebrating what is good and confronting what is bad.
The simple test for seeing if God's goodness is alive in us is to come upon something bad and say to ourselves, "That is not good. I must do something about it." It is becoming light bearers, who shine into the darkness--and the darkness does not defeat it.
[1] For more on the Hebrew and Greek meanings of 'good,' see William Mounce, 'Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Zondervan, 2006), 300-302.
[2] For more, see the article "Original Righteousness" in 'The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church' Third Edition, (Oxford University Press, 2005).
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"Practicing the Better: Good at the Source" by jstevenharperThe source for practicing the better is God, the One whose nature is love (hesed and agapé), and whose motivation is to redeem, rebuild, restore, and renew--as we say it in the liturgy, "whose property is always to have mercy." We will use this primal reality as our focal point for this entire series, and we will return to it directly and indirectly again and again.
This source became incarnate in Jesus, the Word made flesh (John 1:14), "full of grace and truth"--two words that create the better in every situation. As we read the Gospels, we see Jesus practicing the better day-after-day, person-after person.
And after his resurrection and ascension, the Spirit carries on the same practice through the fruit of the Spirit--love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23)--bearing that fruit in us and through us, as we become instruments of God's shalom.
This means that the practice of the better is no passing fancy or after thought. It is rooted in the heart of God and woven into the fabric of Reality. We are meant to be threads in this eternal and cosmic tapestry, offering ourselves to God as living sacrifices. (Romans 12:1).
The practice of the better is the Way. At this moment, we are either on the Way--or in the way.
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Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Categories: Practicing the Better
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