October 21st, 2025
When you think of yourself and our world, does "very good" come to mind? Or does something else come to mind first? The gospel is a story of goodness -- of reclaiming and uncovering the goodness that is in all of us. The power of Sin may have blurred our vision, but it can't take away what God has created.
Sometimes we forget that. Or we're told so often that we're sinners that we completely forget that we're made "very good." Sinner is not who we are. It is what's happened to us and to our humanity. Scripture tells a different story: we are made "very good" and in the image of God. Sometimes we move pretty quickly past this to "the fall." James Bryan Smith suggests maybe that we linger a bit longer on what God made in us before we turned away from it. Maybe forgetting the goodness that God made in us is part of our problem. Maybe paying more attention to what we're made for might change things.
Sometimes we forget that. Or we're told so often that we're sinners that we completely forget that we're made "very good." Sinner is not who we are. It is what's happened to us and to our humanity. Scripture tells a different story: we are made "very good" and in the image of God. Sometimes we move pretty quickly past this to "the fall." James Bryan Smith suggests maybe that we linger a bit longer on what God made in us before we turned away from it. Maybe forgetting the goodness that God made in us is part of our problem. Maybe paying more attention to what we're made for might change things.
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