According to God’s own testimony of himself in Ex 34:6, the Lord is abundant in goodness.  He has been very good to us, not because we are so good but because he is so good.  God delights in doing good through his abundant goodness.  We should therefore:

Acknowledge his goodness. Jesus said that “none is good, save one, that is, God”, Lk 18:19. He was good to the thief on the cross.  And he was good to Peter who denied him.  He is good to give rain to the unjust.  And he is good to give breath and life to all, Acts 17:25.  God is good all the time, even when the circumstances in our lives are horrible.

When people in the world are good to you, like Cornelius was to the Jews, it’s uncommon.  Even these “good” people need the abundant goodness of God, like Cornelius, Acts 10.  As good as Cornelius was, he was totally lost without Christ.

Accept his goodness. To receive God’s abundant goodness and repent is very humbling. The goodness of God can bring you to repentance, Rom 2:4.  We should never be like the Jews in the land of Canaan, who took advantage of God’s goodness, Neh 9:25-26, and forgot him.

Ask for his goodness.  Ezra 8:22, Amos 5:14, Lam 3:25.  When we ask for God to do something good for us, we give him opportunity to be good to us.  When we look to him for direction, for provision, for wisdom, etc., we’re asking him to do good for us.  And we’re more aware of his abundant goodness to us, when we see him respond to our prayers and our requests.

Appreciate his goodness. God is worthy. Thank him and praise him.  Paul and Silas didn’t think God had done something wrong when they were beaten and imprisoned in Acts 16.  They sang praises and prayed.  Consequently, the jailer was saved.  Don’t think for a minute that God has suddenly ceased to be good because you are now experiencing something bad in this world.

When things go wrong, he is still good.  When you magnify what’s wrong, you miss all the good that God is doing.  I have see people totally overlook the abundant goodness of God because they were concentrating all of their attention on one or two things that were not good.  And there were at least ten obvious things that were exceedingly good that they just wouldn’t appreciate.

Announce his goodness.  Tell others.  The world is so bad with all of its death, sin, sickness, trouble, war, wickedness, etc.  We, on the other hand, have the “good” news.  But we can’t keep all this good news to ourselves.  We have to let people know that God has been maligned in society.  He is so much better than they can possibly imagine.  Like us, we want them to come to Christ and experience God’s abundant goodness, firsthand.  They will certainly change their minds.