The Goodness of God

Scriptures: Psalm 34:8-10 “ 8  Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! 9  Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. 10  The young lions lack and suffer hunger; But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any
good thing.

God is good and all the time God is good, Don Moen recorded this song and was released in 1998 from his album, God is good, But I only first heard the song in the year 2000 when I first attended one of those Filipino church in Taiwan and I fell in love with the song and its message because back then my life experienced I would say was going through lots of difficulties and misfortunes. My one and only younger brother died, My mother went to a deep depression almost gone crazy , My father plunged himself deeper to alcohol, his way of fighting sorrow
and my husband left me for another woman leaving me and my 5 year old daughter that time. During those times I am questioning God’s goodness, and thinking I deserved all those misfortunes because I was not good and disobedient to God. But also at the same I am trusting
Him and seeking His forgiveness and asking for His help to make my life better and promised I’ll be good just give me another chance. Until I fully realised and understand that His goodness does not depends and it is beyond my performance and behaviour whether I am good
or bad, God is good and all the time, He is good! And that in Him, there is no partiality (Romans 2:11, Colossians 3:25, Acts 10:34-35)

Psalm 34:8 “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

Goodness is one of the moral attributes of God. Psalm 119:68 “You are good and do good” so the Bible defines God’s goodness in two ways, His character and His ways. The Scripture says that though “No one has ever seen God (1 John 4:12, Exodus 33:20) yet we can taste and see
that the Lord is good! And how is that possible? Look at all of His creation
Psalm 33:5 “The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord”, For everything God created is good
(Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4)

1. God is disposed to looking out continually for the welfare of His creation. We called this “Common Grace” or “Natural Blessings” God’s goodness does not merely shown in His beautiful creation but also in His divine providence, His generosity has seen in providentially sustaining and caring for all He has made. Psalm 145:16 “You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing”

Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to everyone. He showers compassion on all his creation and that includes even the animals and plants, we know that because it was written in Matthew 6:26-30 “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,…. God so clothes the grass of the field”

Matthew 5:45 “For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil.
Another example is the air we breathe, it’s free! Rich and poor, young and old, good and bad we all breathed the same air.

2. God reveals His goodness through His Divine Intervention – “Sovereign Grace “ Moses in Exodus 32-33, after the Israelites committed a great sin against God by bowing down to idol, the Golden Calf. He pleads God’s forgiveness on their behalf and even asked God to
blot out his name out of the book, in other words though he was not among those who sin, if God will not forgive them, let him be punished also. Then asked God presence to be with them and show him His glory. Why Moses would asked that? Was he not convinced of God’s
glorious miracles and he needed more proof? Of course not, Moses has seen already God’s glorious power and what he is asking now is God’s glorious presence of his goodness and mercy that whatever happens in all their failures, God will not abandon them that His
presence will always be with them.

Remember in Exodus 33:2-3 God said to Moses “ I will send My Angel before you, for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” Moses said No “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. As if Moses is
telling God, no unless it is you, not just your AngeI we will not go. And because God is pleased with Moses, he replied to Moses in Exodus 33: 19 “I will make all.

My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”

Moses asks for glory. God promises goodness. God’s glory, God’s goodness, God’s sovereign grace. – and what is His Name? Immanuel- God is with us! And if God is for us who can be against us? God is good and He desires to be involved in our personal lives because He cares
and loves us much contrary to what deism is teaching that God is a creator who does not intervene in our lives that whether we do good or bad, whatever the result of our choices happens because we made it to happen to our lives, the consequences of our own actions.

God goodness does not mean also because He is good that He should not allow bad things to us when we do wrong, otherwise it will contradict his goodness. NO! It does not work that way. Rather because He is good,He will not tolerate wickedness or injustices, because His
goodness means that He is righteous and just God. God’s justice cannot be separated from his other attributes. “ “shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25)

He will not allow evil things to continue and hurt the lives of those who are innocence. God could not be good and leave injustice unchecked. Like a loving parents, we do not allowed our children to do in their own folly, that will hurt others and even themselves eventually.

God intervenes on behalf of His goodness even in the lives of those people who rebelled against His words who had given themselves to sin.When they repent, He delivers them from their distress, breaks the chains of sin that bind them,When they cry to the Lord. He heals
them, and reverses the killing effects of sin in their lives. God intervenes when we are in troubles and facing danger . Psalm 46:1

Romans 8: 28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. The Scriptures does not says all things are good, because it is not good when we are facing difficulties, when there is sickness and
tragedies, suffering and pain, but rather it says with God’s goodness even bad things happened in our lives, God can turn the situation for our own good.

But if God is good, why God allow bad things and situations happens to us? Why bad things happens to good people? C.S Lewis in his book, The problem of Pain wrote “If God were good, He would wish His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were Almighty, He would be
able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power.or both”. This philosophical view of course is just a natural reasoning of a man, many of Theologians and philosophers have wrestled for centuries for the problem of
suffering and no one ever come up with a simple and complete solution. As the Bible says “ For My thoughts are not your thoughts,Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord,“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts
than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9

Remember the life of Joseph sold as a slave, suffer injustices and went to prison. But because he loved God and obey His words and believed God’s purpose for his life, he was able to endure all the hardships and understood that all the injustices happened to him is necessary for the fulfilment of God’s purpose. Genesis 50:20 “ you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good!

Job, a man of complete integrity, God-fearing and prayerful man (Job 1:8) lost everything his children and his properties ,even his own body is inflicted with boils. Yet he did not waver in his faith and still reverently fear God “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? Job 2:10

David, a man after God’s own heart ( 1 Samuel 13:22, Acts 13:22) yet he faced enemies almost of his entire lives, his life is always chased by people who wants him killed and be dethroned. Psalm 119:157 “Many are my persecutors and my enemies! Many are they who rise up against me. (Psalm 3:1-8)

Why??? There could be many answers, but mainly reasons I could say are the following;
* To build our good and godly characters and to bring us to our Christian maturity like Joseph, he was able to forgive his brothers and to fulfil His good purposes in our lives.
* To strengthened and stretched our faith in Him until it becomes an unshakeable ground “For I know that my Redeemer lives!(Job 19:25) to received much overflowing blessings and favours from God like Job, God restores double for all his troubles “Instead of your shame you will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace you will rejoice in your inheritance. (Isaiah 61:7)
* To draw us near to God and depend on Him alone in times of all our weaknesses and hardship. Psalm 119:71 “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.

3. God’s goodness reveals through Jesus Christ in Redemption of mankind –Saving Grace Again back in the book of Exodus 33, God says to Moses “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the
rock. – then in the New Testament (Mark 9:2–13; Matthew 17:1–13; Luke 9:28–36) Jesus transfigured in the Mount, Moses and Elijah is talking with him. The conversation between them were not written in the Bible. I can only imagine that in those moment that God finally shown to Moses His promised goodness in the glory of Jesus Christ- the image of the invisible God , in whom we have redemption through His blood, the  forgiveness of sins.( Colossians 1:14-15)

Psalm 85:6 “For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.
“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good” (Psalm 107:1; 118:1; 136:1)

Philippians 1:6 “ being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;