To Live is Christ — obeying both big and small things

If I saw a child drowning and didn’t go for help, or let a child play on the street, that could be a crime. If the child died when I could have saved them, I could be charged with depraved indifference. This is close, but not exactly the same as what this verse is talking about: “If you don’t do what you know is right, you have sinned.” (James 4:17)

The law, whether the law of God or the laws of the land, tells me ‘do this’ or ‘do that.’ If I fail to keep civil laws, then civil courts could punish me. The wages of breaking God’s law are more severe. Romans 6:23 says that “the wages of sin is death” meaning eternal separation from God. Law breaking is serious. Sin is even more serious.

Yet, because I am a Christian, I am under another law. This law is good news as far as that ‘sin and death’ law is concerned. It says, “For the law of the Spirit of life has set (me) free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2)

This means that when (not if) I sin, I will not pay the penalty; Christ has paid it for me. I’m free from that law. Praise God. However, the verse from James puts me under something even more demanding than all the “do nots” of the Old Testament, and even all the civil laws as well.

Knowing to do good makes for a huge list. I cannot imagine how much paper I’d need. Visit the sick. Care for the homeless. Tip the waiter. Sweep up trash. Play music for a shut-in. Learn sign language and talk to the deaf. Make cookies for my grandchildren. Such a list could fill me with guilt as it filled my days with constant effort — if I were certain that failure to do it all makes me a sinner.

Or is this about something else, maybe opportunities? Do I only need to do good when the circumstance presents itself? One verse in the Bible says it could be . . .  

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:10)

Do I do good only when the time is right? Is that what James 4:17 says? No, it says that I am to do good (or right) when I know something is the right thing to do. That changes this — just a bit.

I’ve known people that could be called “do gooders” with a reputation for constant benevolence, yet when questioned their motivation was something like, “I do these things because they make me feel so good.” In other words, their good deeds have selfish roots. In the to-do list of God’s people, those ‘good deeds’ don’t count.

Doing right isn’t about making me feel good. It isn’t about my plans either. The fact is, I get interrupted almost every day while I’m doing what I had planned by someone who wants me to do something else. Most of the time, the Holy Spirit gives me the nod on the interruption. He says, “This is right; do it.” I know that if I don’t, I am disobeying God and that is sin.

Knowing what is right certainly includes speed limits, and loving my neighbor, and visiting someone in the hospital, but listening to God teaches me that He could ask of me thousands of other right things. These are ‘good’ yet not by the evaluation of any law. I know are good because He says to do them. They might go unnoticed by others but they are important to Him, so important that to ignore them means I have sinned.