When the good fails to be full good!

In my earlier blogs I have quoted this fabulous Poem “Two kinds of people” by Ela Wheeler Wilcox. Now I feel the necessity to bring once again the first three paragraphs of this poem which is so rich in its essence.

Two kinds of people by Ela Wheeler Wilcox

There are two kinds of people on earth to-day;

Just two kinds of people, no more I say.

Not the sinner and saint, for it's well understood

The good are half bad and the bad are half good.

Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man's wealth,

You must first know the state of his conscience and health.

The problem with many Christians is that they are close to being complete good and fail to live with the good that Christ modeled. To a larger extent, we are all affected by these factors, Dichotomy (living a life with two extremes), Mediocrity (taking a middle path, trying to be safe) and Compromising lifestyle (half-good and half-bad). It doesn’t disturb people for who they are as long as their survival is not intercepted. If you notice in the Bible, Elijah at one-point challenges the crowd who were leading a dual-life, a life with hypocrisy. Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God follow him, But the people didn’t answer him a word.”.  1 Kings 18:21. Many people will not say ‘no’, neither would they say ‘Yes’ when needed. They hypocritically adapt a new lifestyle.

With crisis getting deeper and deeper how are people responding now? Either completely surrendering and following God genuinely or learning to mitigate the situation and lead a life of dichotomy. Jesus warns this when He says, “Be on your guard, so that your mind are not dulled from carousing, drunkenness, and worries of life…” Luke 21:34. Both pleasure and pain has the capacity to dull our minds and conscience, and drive us to live without a real sense of purpose and accountability. This will further force people to live with half good. Do you see that?

In Job 36:13 it says, “Those who have a godless heart harbor anger, even when God binds them, they do not cry for help.”. Crisis and challenges point our direction to God. But people choose to ignore it and find their own way to handle the situation. We can question suffering and not be willing reach out to Him at all. However, you have a choice? Either seriously turn to Him, or remain the way you are with half good.

The unfortunate tales of selective goodness is ripping Christendom. Christians and people who are in leadership are becoming very unpredictable, who they are today are not who they will be tomorrow. In the world of technology, we started using people like social apps, we can mute them, block them and unmute them and unblock them when we need to connect. We are in the final countdown, unless our goodness gets perfected, we are sure heading for ultimate disappointment.

I want to close with the powerful words of John Wesley with which he directed his lay preachers, 

“Never be unemployed, never be triflingly employed…Be serious: let your motto be, Holiness to the Lord. Avoid all lightness as you would avoid hell-fire, and trifling as you would cursing and swearing. Touch no woman; be as loving as you will, but the custom of the country is nothing to us. Take money of no one; if they give you food when you are hungry, and clothes when you want them, it is enough; but no silver or gold: let there be no pretense for any one to say we grow rich by the gospel.”

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