God Is Good!

I’ve been thinking about God’s goodness. It seems to me that God will be good to me when I am good, and when I’m not, I won’t hear from him. Is that true? Psalm 100:5 says, “For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting and His faithfulness is to all generations.” The fact is that God’s goodness is rooted in His character, not mine. This passage makes several matter-of-fact statements with the little linking verb is.

This tiny two-letter word makes an assertion of identity that is emphatic and unique. I say it’s unique because it can’t really be said about anyone else. While we can be good, we’re not good. We can be faithful, but consistent, unfailing faithfulness isn’t ingrained in our DNA. God, however, IS good. Jesus said it clearly in Luke 18:19: “No one is good but God alone.”

To say that God is good means that when He acts, He acts out of the context of goodness. Goodness is part of his nature, and He defines what is good. That’s why we can say that anything that is contrary to God is not good. 

Now, everything that happens to us is not good. We live in a broken world, and sometimes, we catch the brunt end of some expression of brokenness. But here’s a wonderful thing. Our good God can take that which is not good and work it out for our good (Rom 8:28). Think about what happened to Joseph in the Old Testament. Remember? He could write a book on things that were not good that continued happening to him. But in the end, he concluded with the words to his brothers that are found in Genesis 50:20: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”So, when something comes our way that doesn’t seem good, we should lean into our good God and know that He specializes in taking something broken and making it whole. He’ll take something even meant for our harm and turn it around for our good. Now, that’s good. And that’s a good God.