God is Good

Ps 106:1, Ps 107:1, 118:1, 118:29, Ps 136:1 say, “Praise ye the Lord, O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever”.  God is good.

God has been good to us.  I met a young man recently who said, “I should be dead”.  God was merciful to him and saved him.  God has given us good rest and good provision.  He has manifested his goodness in his good creation.  He has given us a good family, a good Book, a good hope, a good home, and good fruit.  His goodness abounds.

God’s goodness is not dependent upon our goodness.  We think the better we are the better he’s going to be to us.  To a degree, this is true.  Ps 84:11 says, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly”.

But bad things happen to good people and God doesn’t suddenly become bad because we’re going through something bad.

Job is good example.  He walked uprightly and God hedged him in.  Yet, when the devil attacked, Job didn’t know what to think of God and his friends didn’t know what to think of Job.  His friends thought something must be wrong with Job.  Job thought something must be wrong with God.

What Job didn’t realize is that he was going to end with 140 more years, 10 kids, and double his possessions.  It was good for him to see that he didn’t have to live the rest of his life justifying himself in his own righteousness.  And after his ordeal with the devil, he really knew God for who he truly is.  He knew God is good all the time.

God’s chastening hand is good, too.  He brings us to the place where we are partakers of his holiness and we yield the peaceable fruit of his righteousness.  I thank God!!

God was good to Paul.  God brought Paul to revelations, grace, mercy, peace, contentment, and joy.  He had been a blasphemer, persecutor and injurious.  He became a preacher, apostle, and teacher of the Gentiles.

God told Ananias “How great things he must suffer for my name’s sake”, Acts 9:16.  Yet, God didn’t make Paul suffer to pay him back for all the persecution to the church.  Paul knew the mind of God’s opponents.  And he knew their religious zeal in opposition to the gospel.  He suffered because of their unbelief, not because God paid him back.

This is helpful to us.  It reminds us that God is not paying us back for our past sins when we go through something bad.  We may, in fact, suffer the natural consequences of our sins, but God doesn’t pay us back, for that which Jesus already paid.

God has been good to Israel.  Israel had turned to the gods of Egypt.  They had become accustomed to life in Egypt without God.  Yet in their affliction, when they cried out to God, he helped them.  He came and took them as his son.  He plagued Egypt, got them across the Red Sea, cared for them through the entire wilderness journey.  And gave them the Promised land.  In addition, he gave them commandments that were for their good always.  And still, they turned back on him again and again through the Judges and Kings.  When Jesus came as their Messiah, they killed him.  Yet, the Lord will fulfill all his promises and covenants that he made to them.

This helps us to know that God will make good on every promise he made to us.  That’s because Gos is good.

God is good to the world.  Rom 2:4 says, “knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance”.

Ps 69:16 Hear me, O Lord; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.

People ask, “What kind of God would send people to hell”?  They think God is bad.  I would ask, “Is God bad for making hell for the devil and his angels?  Is God bad for making his Son endure all of his wrath against the sin caused by the devil?  Is God bad for giving you the simple option to believe his Son and have eternal life for ever”?

For those of us who are saved, do you really want to spend eternity with people who hate the God that loved them so much?  No way.   

You don’t understand all there is to the Lord.  But one thing you should know for sure is that God is good.  And he will save you right now if you will trust him to save you right now.