The reason why somebody does the same good act seems to matter. Is a person a good person if that person’s reason for the good he/she is doing is not good?

It seems that a person can be declared good before God if they are doing good in harmony with their Creator, rather than in opposition to Him. If one’s deeds are done out of love for God and not in rebellion against Him, then that person may be considered good in God’s eyes.

Maybe this is one reason why God says that all our righteousness is as filthy rags before Him because our motives for doing good are rooted in an indifferent, disrespectful, uncaring/loving attitude about Him. So, maybe we look good in the eyes of others but how about in the eyes of God? Kind of like a Pastor who treats everybody but his own wife and family well. Sure, everybody thinks he is great but maybe not so much his family.

Here is Origen in a response to Celsus’ argument against Christianity 248AD

“To this our answer is, that if the Scythians, the nomadic tribes of Libya, the Seres, who according to Celsus have no god, if those other most barbarous and impious nations in the world, and if the Persians even cannot bear the sight of temples, altars, and images, it does not follow because we cannot suffer them any more than they, that the grounds on which we object to them are the same as theirs. WE MUST INQUIRE INTO THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE OBJECTION TO TEMPLES AND IMAGES IS FOUNDED, IN ORDER THAT WE MAY APPROVE OF THOSE WHO OBJECT ON SOUND PRINCIPLES, AND CONDEMN THOSE WHOSE PRINCIPLES ARE FALSE. FOR ONE AND THE SAME THING MAY BE DONE FOR DIFFERENT REASONS. FOR EXAMPLE, the philosophers who follow Zeno of Citium abstain from committing adultery, the followers of Epicurus do so too, as well as others again who do so on no philosophical principles; but observe what different reasons determine the conduct of these different classes. The first consider the interests of society, and hold it to be forbidden by nature that a man who is a reasonable being should corrupt a woman whom the laws have already given to another, and should thus break up the household of another man. The Epicureans do not reason in this way; but if they abstain from adultery, it is because, regarding pleasure as the chief end of man, they perceive that one who gives himself up to, adultery, encounters for the sake of this one pleasure a multitude of obstacles to pleasure, such as imprisonment, exile, and death itself. They often, indeed, run considerable risk at the outset, while watching for the departure from the house of the master and those in his interest. So that, supposing it possible for a man to commit adultery, and escape the knowledge of the husband, of his servants, and of others whose esteem he would forfeit, then the Epicurean would yield to the commission of the crime for the sake of pleasure. The man of no philosophical system, again, who abstains from adultery when the opportunity comes to him, does so generally from dread of the law and its penalties, and not for the sake of enjoying a greater number of other pleasures. You see, then, that an act which passes for being one and the same—namely, abstinence from adultery—is not the same, but differs in different men according to the motives which actuate it: one man refraining for sound reasons, another for such bad and impious ones as those of the Epicurean, and the common person of whom we have spoken.

As, then, this act of self-restraint, WHICH IN APPEARANCE IS ONE AND THE SAME, IS FOUND IN FACT TO BE DIFFERENT in different persons, according to the principles and motives which lead to it; so in the same way with those who cannot allow in the worship of the Divine Being altars, or temples, or images. The Scythians, the Nomadic Libyans, the godless Seres, and the Persians, agree in this with the Christians and Jews, but they are actuated by very different principles. For none of these former abhor altars and images on the ground that they are afraid of degrading the worship of God, and reducing it to the worship of material things wrought by the hands of men. Neither do they object to them from a belief that the demons choose certain forms and places, whether because they are detained there by virtue of certain charms, or because for some other possible reason they have selected these haunts, where they may pursue their criminal pleasures, in partaking of the smoke of sacrificial victims. But Christians and Jews have regard to this command, “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve Him alone;” and this other, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me: thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them;” and again, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” It is in consideration of these and many other such commands, that they not only avoid temples, altars, and images, but are ready to suffer death when it is necessary, rather than debase by any such impiety the conception which they have of the Most High God.

Origen. 1885. “Origen against Celsus.” In Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, translated by Frederick Crombie, 4:636–37. The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.

The greatest commandment according to Jesus is to love the Lord! If we are doing good with no love in our hearts to God we are like the Pastor that loves everybody else but has no love for his own family.

Be good for God for there is no greater to be good for! Let God be God! Let us not make an idol out of your own righteousness! Love God, Love others never at the expense of the other! Balance…Jesus is based!

Trust Jesus above whatever it is you may be trusting over Him or tempted to! God bless…

Did you know that the Biblical writings from the BC (BCE) predicted a coming “Servant/Messiah” who would bring God’s word to the nations world over? Did you know that Jesus claimed to be that Messiah and claimed that His message would go to the nations world over? Did you know that Jesus predicted both good and bad players in His multicultural/cross border kingdom? Did you know Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world? And yet the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

The rest is history….