Jon Goodwin

Fruit>Power – Jesus said it.

Jesus did not desire to overturn Roman rule.  He desired to overthrow the throne of your heart.  The overthrow of the throne of your heart would then lead to a radical transformation of your life.  His Kingship, though internal, would manifest itself outwardly.  The fruit of this would then be seen, heard, and felt.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control would all be present.  At the same time outbursts of anger and an argumentative spirit would be among things that would no longer be present because the fruit that was produced would eventually choke out these poisons.  

In world where it still appears as though Rome is ruling, does it appear to those who are watching you that Jesus is ruling you?  

There were attempts made to take Jesus and make Him king.  Whenever His followers pursued influence over holiness Jesus always countered with correction.  Domination and power over are never the goals of the kingdom of God.  It is power under.  As we live a life under the influence of our King and we allow His influence to permeate every facet of life and flow forth in such a way that the aforementioned fruit becomes available and accessible to all who come in contact with us.  

If you spend all your time guarding your garden, your vegetables will eventually get choked out by weeds. True, birds, rabbits and rodents might never eat your fruit but guess what?  If you spend all your time tending your garden, weeding it, watering it, pruning it, you will also not have the birds, rabbits, and rodents eating your crop?  Why?  Because you are also present.  Yet at the same time, you will produce way more fruit.  Simply put, if your whole life is spent watching for evils to fight versus cultivating the good around you that you can control, your fruit production will always suffer.  At the same time those around you will suffer because God in His providence has called you to produce His fruit and give it away to those He has put in your path.  

Jon Goodwin

Servant of ALL

“If you want to be great in My kingdom, be a servant of ALL.” -Jesus

This idea of being a servant of all is not designated for times when it is convenient, not just when those in need of service look like you, vote like you, speak the same language as you, and dress like you. ALL is a pretty wide net. All includes “every tribe, every tongue, every nation.”

When considering this concept, if we include a “but, what if they…” then we aren’t getting it. God’s commands do not include asterisks, exceptions, and exemptions just expectations. The expectation is not that we can say it, the expectation is that we would live it.  

Jesus spoke the following words, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  He did not ask His followers how much you know rather He said, do what you do know.  At some point we have flipped the script.  We place a large amount of weight on knowledge and have seemed to relax a bit on the doing or have simply relegated the doing to being nice.  

Please do not think that I am diminishing the importance of knowledge.  I am not.  I live in pursuit of it every day of my life.  But at the end of the day, you and I will be remembered not by what we knew but by what we did with what we knew.  

I have a relative that at one point told me the entire plan of salvation.  Is that enough?  Nope. She flat out rejects it as truth.

I know people who believe the Scriptures when they say “all people are image bearers of God and therefore have value” but at the same time live very privileged lives and never consider that Jesus heart was positioned towards “the least of these.”  This is not a gap in knowledge.  This is a gap in obedience.  

The problem is that our faith is often big enough to embrace a truth while we attend Bible Studies but is not big enough to embrace while we are interacting with the marginalized.  In this Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep My commands.”  Jesus does not just want your amen to be something that comes out of your mouth.  He desires that your amen would be something that flows from your life.  Our hearts should be bursting with the idea that I am convinced therefore, I do. 

In Romans 12.1 we read, “Therefore I urge you, brethren by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”  How does one present their bodies as a living holy sacrifice?  It is much more than putting on the mind of Christ.  It also includes the hands and feet.

Jon Goodwin

Billionaires, World Hunger, and Coffee Thoughts

I recently read an article about the 15 richest people in the world.  My first thought? They could end world hunger.  Did a little research, as I am not the first to have that thought and found that a 2% annual donation from the world’s 3,000 billionaires could eliminate global hunger and malnutrition, according to various studies.

While I know that forced donations (taxes and tariffs or whatever you want to call them) aren’t a popular method it does show that we don’t live in a world that is lacking resources.  We live in a world where there is excessive hoarding of wealth.  All that is needed for humanity to flourish (at least on the physical side) already exists.  We don’t need more programs.  We need people who see their neighbors and who value of their neighbors.  This world does not have a shortage in resources, it has a shortage in compassion.

Furthermore, there are some very generous deep pockets out there, but generosity is often tied to what the giver wants rather than what those who are vulnerable need. The question ought not be what do I want but rather what are the real needs in my community.  We need to ask these questions as humans, as organizations, as churches, as governments, etc…

I guess what I am trying to say is this.  Love your neighbor.  See the vulnerable, not as people or situations to be fixed but as fellow people to be served.  Offer hope with the help.  Jesus did this all the time.  Not only did He pass out real bread, but He also said, I am the bread of life.  Not only did He heal the sick, but He is also I am the great physician.  

Whenever I share thoughts like this, I get lectured that it would never work because donations given would be taken by the powerful before they ever reached the vulnerable.  Those who claim this are correct, but this shouldn’t stop us from trying to eliminate hunger and alleviate hardship.  Our doing good should not be dependent on how those who do evil might respond.  We are responsible for us, not them.  And hypothetical wrongdoing does not release us from very real needs.

“So, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” -James 4.17

These are my morning coffee thoughts… 

Jon Goodwin

Put Down The Sword

Like many of you, I am tired of the violence.  I am tired of the vengeance.  I am tired of the weaponization of Facebook posts.  I am tired of the weaponization of Twitter/X posts.  I am tired.  I am tired of the weaponization of words.  We live in a world that seems to love the destruction of enemies.  We witness public celebration when an enemy falls.  As if, the sermon on the mount’s teachings is only to be followed when it is convenient.  The idea of turning the other cheek and loving one’s enemy was not just countercultural when Jesus presented this teaching so many years ago, but it is countercultural today.

If Christ was here, I am sure He would say to many of His followers, “put down your sword”, just as He did to Peter. He would then offer to heal those that sword wielding Christians had wounded. 

The narrative of the arrest of Jesus is remarkable in several different areas.  I would like to highlight Peter’s sword fight and Jesus’ work of healing.  The moment Jesus was arrested, Peter started swinging a sword.  He did not even begin to consider that the bad stuff happening was instigated by divine providence.  God the Father set the timing and the plan into motion before the beginning of time.  Perhaps, Peter did not consider this because he never asked.  If he had asked Jesus, what should I do?  Jesus would have replied, nothing or perhaps, pray, and stay awake while you do.  

But Peter never asked Jesus for directives, rather, he just started swinging his sword.  While he believed that he was defending Jesus, he was harming those Christ came to save.  He was stepping in front of an eternal plan that was written out in the very throne room of God Himself and Jesus said, “Peter, put down your sword.”

When we are quick to do battle and slow to consider that perhaps some hardship is necessary for the eternal plan to unfold, we are only revealing that we have a very limited perspective.  We are revealing the biblical truth that “God’s ways are higher than our ways” (Isaiah 55.8-9).  How funny it is that we often regurgitate this truth as though it was merely a motivational saying but at the first sign of hardship, we grab our swords and start lopping ears off.

And that’s exactly what Peter did.  He busted out his trusty sword and started swinging.  Thankfully his aim was a bit off.  Still, he connected.  His sword lopped the ear off a man who was part of Jesus’ arrest party.  A man whom we are told was the servant of the temple guard.  Peter wildly swung the sword, Jesus intervened, and then Jesus picked up the dismembered ear and healed a man who was there to help arrest Jesus.  Jesus healed His enemy and chastised His follower for harming His enemy.  Let that sink in, Jesus healed His enemy and chastised His follower for harming His enemy.  

This should not surprise us if we are students of our Savior.  We must remember that on Palm Sunday, Jesus did not come riding into Jerusalem on a war horse as a conquering hero.  No!  He came riding in on donkey as a symbol of peace.  After all, Jesus is the Prince of Peace.

If that is true, that Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and it is also true we are His disciples, then peace should be the overflow of our hearts and lives as disciples of the Prince of Peace.  With this final thought in mind, two Scriptures come to mind, Luke 6.45 and Matthew 5.9.  Luke 6.45 says, that your words, “flow from the abundance of the heart” and Matthew 5.9 says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.”  Now I don’t know about you, but I want to bare the title, “son of God” and I also want the overflow of my heart to look like the overflow of the heart of Jesus.  That will only happen when I put down the sword and make it my mission, like Christ, to be in the business of healing rather than harming.  Friend and foe alike, both need more Jesus and less swords.