Some people have an interesting definition of what it means to be good, but more often than not, what I've come to realize is that people tend to confuse being "good" with being "nice." Being nice has to do with politeness. Being good has to do with promoting human flourishing on all levels, the physical, emotional, but especially the spiritual. We were always told as children to play nice, but all that meant was to play fair. If a competition was involved, politeness was to be expected; goodness, however, was another matter entirely.
It's actually fairly easy to be nice. I can still hate someone's guts while at the same time putting a smile on my face and acting polite. Goodness? Towards my enemies? That's tougher. It is what Jesus commanded though (Matthew 5:44). In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas would make goodness the central part of his definition of love, to love meaning "willing the good of another." This is the connection between God and our actions. God is perfect goodness itself. Actions are not good simply because God says they are good, but because he himself is good. If it were the other way around, God could declare murder, hatred, and all sorts of evils to be actually good, and humanity wouldn't have any standard of morality to judge each other by.
This is also why it makes no sense to me to say that Jesus was nothing more than a wise teacher, or a good man. He claimed to be God, something no Jew would dare do. They had spent centuries refining and practicing a stringent monotheism; there's no way they would substitute a humble rabbi for the very center of their own religion.
As Christians we have to strive for more than just being nice. We must strive to be good. That will be hard. It will require speaking hard truths to those we know out of a spirit of charity. It will require boatloads of self-discipline and accountability. The path to heaven is made for the good, to be walked with humility. Don't just be nice. Be better than nice. Be good.
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