The cost of being good.

Whoever says that Christianity is easy is wrong. Christianity is not easy. Yes, a life with Jesus is better, but it does not make it easier.

Every now and then every Christian experiences the raw and heartbreaking cost of being good; the moment when despite all your honesty, goodness and love… it is all thrown back in your face. Most Christians will have had an experience in their life when they have made a conscious, Godly decision to do something hard or costly for another person because it’s what Jesus told us to do, only to have it backfire or end up unwanted.

I remember the first time I scratched someone’s car. It was a huge, black, shiny 4WD. I’d only been driving a couple of months and once I got out of the car to survey the damage, knees shaking and nervous as anything, I had to make a decision: whether to leave straight away and forget it never happened like the majority of drivers, or leave a note and pay for the damage. I decided to do what I knew was right, and left a note to pay the fine. The cost of being good in that situation was exactly $700. For a scratch. But even though it cost me my hard earned high school savings, it made a difference to the owners of the huge, black, shiny 4WD – little had I known that they had been subject to many ‘scratch and run away’ instances and were very grateful for my honesty. Even now, many years later, I pray that if they ever scratch someone else’s car, they remember what I did and do the same.

Think about your life. Have you ever had any similar instances where you experienced very bluntly the cost of being good? I’ve heard so many stories of families who take a homeless person into their home, only to wake up the next morning with half their valuables missing and an empty couch. But did they do the wrong thing? No! They did exactly what Jesus calls us to do, to follow him by taking up our cross and taking the gritty with the wonderful.

Perhaps you’ve been on the receiving end of a sour relationship when all you did was give support and love, only to have hate and bitterness back from the other end? Or maybe you’ve been in a situation when honestly has made you feel like a fool, or alienated you from loved ones? Or perhaps, like me, your propensity to think the best of people and refusal to gossip means you miss out on what goes on beneath the surface with your friends – and you find yourself somewhat alienated from the group because you’re not in on everything.

Whatever it is, we’ve all felt it. We’ve all felt the heartbreaking cost of being good.

But think about Jesus, think about God. All He ever is and was and will be is good. All God made us to be is good, but we threw it back in His face. God’s ultimate cost for being good was the rejection of those He loves most dear, and still He loves! Jesus was tortured and killed for being good – yet He did so out of love, so we could receive that very love! It’s mind blowing!

So when we are tempted to whinge about the cost of being good, and when we feel like chucking the towel in… we must remember that Jesus never did. God bears the ultimate cost for being good, and all we can do is take some of the burden from Him by being His feet and hands in the world.

As the verse in Galations says:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” – Galatians 6:9

Let us not become weary in doing good! If your love is costing you, love more. If you are discovering the cost of being good, do even more good. For we have a Lord and Saviour who did not give up on us, and from whom goodness and love overflow in multitudes! Amen.