Don’t Be A Good Witness

I have heard many times growing up in the Christian world that I need to be a good witness.  Or that something like drinking is a bad witness.  But I say forget that.  Don’t be a good witness. . . or at least don’t let that be your aim.  Where in the Bible are we told be a good witness?  I can’t find it anywhere.  This aim falls short of the greater aim of loving God with all of who we are.  Sometimes, it goes the completely wrong direction altogether.

“How can it bad to be a good witness?” you say.  I understand this question.  Maybe you even acknowledge that the goal is not high enough, but certainly not bad.  But it is.  It is a subtle but profound transition that takes God from being the object to man.  

In loving God, He is the object.  It is Him and Him alone I seek to love, please and pour my affection out to.  It is my Father I consult to determine whether something is right or wrong.  

In living to be a good witness, it is man that I am trying to please.  It my perception of what man at large views as good that I consult to discern whether a choice is good or not.  

While my understanding of Him is growing, God Himself is constant, unchanging.  He is truth, eternal truth.  He is my steady measuring stick.  Man on the other hand is fickle.  Mankind’s views of what is good changes with the seasons or location or any other number of factors.  At the end of the day, what may constitute a good witness for my next door neighbor may not be the makings of a good witness to my co-worker.

I hear some of you thinking, “but what about Paul saying we should be all things to all people?”.  Fair question.  Yes we should be willing to step into different worlds and experience them and enjoy them and be part of them in order to love and reach the people who make up those worlds.  But still, when it comes down to determining how we should live, what is right or wrong, or good or better, we must not consult the people we are trying to reconcile to Christ, but Christ Himself.

Still there are those who think it not bad to strive to be a good witness because at least it is moving in the right direction.  How do we know it is the right direction if the mark is moving with the spirit of the times?  

Lets say it is for the moment moving in the right direction to strive to be a good witness.  Even with that premise the aim is too small.  We must aim for the highest.  We must aim for what we were created, to love God.

At the end of the day, living to be a good witness is just another way of worrying what other people will think.  The question is ‘what does God think?’.  If you are ever tempted to wonder if you are being a bad witness, throw that thought away and ask yourself, ‘is this pleasing God?’.