Virtue and Vice, Naughty Yet Nice

Interviewer: Hello!
God: How are you? Been thinking?
Interviewer: Yes, I have. And as You can see, I’m here for another session.
God: Great! Shall we start?
Interviewer: You are very eager today.
God: I am always eager. When someone is ready to start listening to Me, I like to take advantage of it right away, because often he or she tires pretty quickly and I get left talking to Myself.
Interviewer: Must be very frustrating.
God: Extremely! It is a good thing I have patience.
Interviewer: I suppose that all the things we regard as virtues, such as patience, are part of Your nature.
God: At least all the ones that should be regarded as virtues.
Interviewer: And conversely do all the vices belong to the ugly fella?
God: You are going to really tee him off talking about him like that. So go for it! You are right in that he is the master of vice.
Interviewer: Did he come made with those vices originally or did he think them up all by himself?
God: Those vices are the opposites of the virtues. He saw the good and came up with the bad.
Interviewer: And then saddled us with those?
God: No, you have a choice! You choose whichever you want to yield to, whether virtue or vice. Human nature tends to gravitate toward the bad; it takes more effort to embrace the good. But people often do want to be good, so that gets them to see the need for Me, and having Jesus and the Holy Spirit in their lives. With Our power in them, the good is much more easily achieved.
Interviewer: So then we can all be goody-goodies, I imagine.
God: Good grief, man, goody-goodies are just selfrighteous. Letting Our power work through you won’t make you a goody-goody, but Our power will help you achieve good.
Interviewer: That is a bit confusing for me. What exactly is the difference?
God: Putting on a show of goodness and achieving good are two different things. If you are trying to achieve good for your fellow man, then oftentimes you may not look so good to some. Others may not like what you are doing, may misinterpret your actions, or may feel you are going too far, etc. Looking good is being concerned about yourself and how you appear to others-perfecting yourself, actually, or being in love with yourself. But doing good is being a help to others, being concerned about their needs and condition, and putting yourself at the bottom of the totem pole.
Interviewer: So what is the greatest virtue?
God: Why, love, of course. Because if you love others, that will motivate you to help them in every way, and it will supply you with the will and resources to practice all the other virtues such as patience, kindness, honesty, and so on.
Interviewer: And the greatest vice?
God: Self-righteousness.
Interviewer: I thought You would say hate.
God: The self-righteous “moral” man has wreaked untold damage on the world. Those who have been the greatest scourges of this century thought they were right and righteous. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and others were so convinced of their rightness that they had no compunction in dispensing terror and bloodshed to achieve their “right” ends. And their confident self-righteousness convinced the masses that the horror they were perpetrating was for the greater good.
Self-righteousness causes man to think he is good without Me. Thus he has no need for Me, and he ends up straying far from Me. I have named some of the obvious culprits and there are many more that should spring to your mind, but if I named them, that could hit close to home and knock down some of your icons.
Interviewer: So I won’t pursue it. Somehow when the terms “virtue” and “vice” are mentioned, one subject that springs to mind is sex.
God: Why do you think that is?
Interviewer: Because they have become synonymous. When we say a woman is protecting her virtue, it means she is keeping her chastity. When one thinks of vice, you think of strip joints, hookers, or even a wild time with your girlfriend or spouse.
God: But sex is not a vice.
Interviewer: I think in many people’s minds it is naughty, yet nice.
God: Sex is supposed to be fun. So having a wild time, or a “naughty” time as you inferred, with your spouse should be looked on as getting pretty close to as good as it gets on earth.
Interviewer: Earlier You made some rather radical statements about sex, saying You don’t have to be married to enjoy it.
God: The world has made such an issue out of sex. Sex is supposed to be a wonderful part of marriage, really one of the most fun parts, but it doesn’t only have to be between husbands and wives. It shouldn’t be engaged in frivolously, and people need to be conscious that their actions don’t hurt others. But if it helps someone, hurts no one, and is not illegal, then there is no harm in it. In fact, there is a lot of good in it.
Interviewer: But there are consequences.
God: You mean children?
Interviewer: Yes, but not only children. I mean, sex can kill these days.
God: You mean AIDS and other diseases?
Interviewer: Yes.
God: That is why you shouldn’t have casual sex. There needs to be quite a bit of forethought by both parties.
Interviewer: So shouldn’t they wait till they are married?
God: Perhaps some should, but it is not essential. If you are going to have some sexual incompatibility, it would be good to know and get that sorted out before you get married, wouldn’t it?