Some fun shopping & rutabaga ** Good & evil is objective

Our last devotion was Romans 12:9-13 which listed 13 exhortations…

And for today’s devotion, we are going to focus on the second half of Romans 12: 9.  

Which says: “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.”

First, we must understand that good is not what we want (or choose) to be good. And evil is not what we want (or decide) to be evil.

Good and evil are not defined by what we think is good or evil…

Liking something does not make it good and hating something does not make it evil.

Notice that we are told to abhor evil and hold fast to what is good. This suggests that good and evil is objective and what defines good or evil is not influenced by personal feelings or opinions.

We are to face the objective evil and hate it. And we are to face the objective good and embrace it.

Now what makes good, good and evil, evil and how can we objectively know what is good or evil?

If we look at Romans 12: 2, it says: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

We are able to know what is good, objectively by discerning “the will of God.”

Because good and evil is outside of ourselves...

If there were no God… if there were no Christ… then good and evil would be subjective, not objective. Whereas Good and evil could be biased and change according to our desires. 

I want to point out that we are told to… “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” We are NOT told to: Choose against evil and choose good.

These are strong words being used here… “Abhor” …we are to be disgusted with evil.

And we are to: “Hold fast to what is good” which means we are to embrace it, to love it.

We don’t get to decide what is good and what is bad… God decides what is good and what is bad and we follow that and call it love.

Because what God says is good is good for us, and what God says is bad is bad for us.

God has made himself known objectively and historically known through Jesus Christ in Scripture.

And nothing is better for us than Christ. He is infinitely good and infinitely good for us.

He alone is good which is directly good for us.

Remember that the entirety of all truth and all good; and the triumph over all evil is Christ!

So, hold fast to Christ, and abhor everything that dishonors him.

Always remembering to abhor evil… not the people…