GOD IS GOOD!
John 5:19-20 (NKJV)
19Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. 20“For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.”
Acts 10:38 (NKJV) “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. “
Jesus never did anything that He did not see His Father do. He went about doing good because that was the Father’s will. That was the expression of God’s heart toward us; to do good to us (Hebrews 1:3). Many people do not believe it is God’s will to do good to them. Bad things happen in their lives and they believe God is in control of all that happens on the earth. The obvious conclusion is that God must want to do bad things to them.
We have a basic misunderstanding of how God’s will is released on the earth. And we do not understand why bad things happen. We have believed lies from the enemy, we have not understood God’s word and so we blame God for the bad and we take credit for the good.
James 1:13-17 (NKJV)
13Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. 16Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
The scripture says that all good things are from above; God’s kingdom and He is not tempted to do us evil. But we are tempted and drawn away by our own lust. We sin. The problems in our lives are not God’s fault. They either originated as the result of bad fruit from the seed of sin of previous generations, or they are the result of our sin. Instead of blaming God, Who is good in all things, we need to take responsibility for the results of the evil that originated in our hearts.
Luke 6:45 (NKJV) “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
Psalm 145:9 (NKJV) The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.
NO ONE IS GOOD EXCEPT GOD!
Jesus testified to the goodness of God. When the rich young ruler called Jesus, Good Master, Jesus made this statement which is more clearly understood in the Amplified Version. “Why do you call Me good? No one is [essentially and perfectly morally] good except God only.” Luke 18:19.
Of course, the ruler did not know that Jesus was God in the flesh, which explains why Jesus made this statement as He did. The word He used for “good” means “intrinsically good” or “good at the core.” Because Jesus is in fact, God, He is good at the core of His being, and so everything He does is good. But we need to see what Jesus said here. God the Father and all that God is; Spirit and Word is essentially and perfectly morally good. Everything God says and does comes out of this goodness at the core of who He is.
Because God is essentially good anyone that is connected to God at the core level will also be essentially good. When we are born again we are joined to God at the core level. For He is a spirit being at the core and we are also spirit beings at the core.
1 Corinthians 6:17 (NKJV) But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
We become so joined to God’s Spirit that we become one with Him. We are joined with God spirit-to-spirit; core-to-core.
Ephesians 5:9 (NKJV) (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth),
The fruit of this joining to God’s Spirit is the nature of God manifest in us. 2 Peter 1:4 (NKJV) by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. One aspect of the nature of God is His goodness. (Of course Peter is saying that through the promises we may be partakers of the divine nature. It does not say we will be. Our choices are still part of the equation. Will we trust the God Who promised?)
Psalm 31:19 (NKJV) Oh, how great is Your goodness,
Which You have laid up for those who fear You,
Which You have prepared for those who trust in You
In the presence of the sons of men!
Psalm 34:8 (NKJV) Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
If we taste and see the Lord; if we experience Him at a personal level, we will discover that God is good. When we experience God at the core of being we learn of His goodness.
John 10:11(NKJV) I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
Many of us agree that Jesus is good. We can readily understand His goodness because He went about doing good, healing all that were oppressed of the devil – and the ultimate proof is that He gave His life for us.
Shortly after I received Christ as Savior, I had a dream I which Christ came to me and embraced me. I felt His love for me in a very powerful and personal way. It was not difficult to receive Him, His embrace or His love. I readily received.
Years later when Jesus began a process of introducing me to our Father in Heaven, it was extremely different. I was fearful and hesitant and tried to avoid this wonderful invitation. I knew then that God is good, even the Father. Yet, I did not trust that I could be accepted and loved by Him. To really know Jesus, you must also know the Father. Because I trusted Jesus at the core of my being, He was able to introduce me to our Father in Heaven. I found out that God the Father not only loved me enough to send Jesus to save us but He is good. He has always been good and loving and has only good plans for each of us.
At one time God’s justice demanded that He respond in wrath toward man. Because we did not trust His goodness and His love, man became destructive and deadly toward one another. God was angry as He watched this and grieved because we rejected His love. But His wrath was stirred because we harmed the innocence in one another until innocence was lost.
God’s ultimate answer to this was to send His Son. Jesus satisfied God’s demand for justice by the sacrifice of His own sinless life. The Father poured all His wrath out on Jesus so He no longer needs to be angry. His judgment is satisfied for those who believe and the law no longer has power to condemn them before Him. All we have to do is accept Jesus as our Redeemer and enter into the joy of the Lord. It is only those who reject the payment made by Christ who must therefore meet the law’s demand for punishment by their own merit. Yet the scripture says, There is none righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10; Psalm 14:3).
Today, sadly, men still chose sin over trust in God. Therefore, sin still prevails in the world and God still retains wrath for the Day of Judgment. Sin’s prevailing reign on the earth will end one day. But God is saying to the believer today, walk in My light and be led by My Spirit and you will reign on the earth today in righteousness. God is waiting for us to discover His goodness and walk in the revelation of His available victory in the righteousness of Christ now.
Romans 5:17-21 (NKJV)
17For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) 18Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. 19For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous. 20Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 21so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
HOW GOOD GOD IS
God created the universe in all its glory and wonder and specifically designed this one planet, earth, for us. It’s perfect for us to live and learn and grow. He filled our environment with beautiful plant life or great variety for our enjoyment and food. He added animals, birds and water creatures of such vast variety, beauty and interesting design and function. He created all of this just to create a wonderful home to place the object of His love – man.
When God created man He gave us the capacity to receive His love, to feel loved and to have love grow inside of us to return to Him and give to each other. Love was the paramount motive in God’s creation of man.
However, God had to also give man free-will to choose to love Him or even to hate Him. You see love is not love, if it is forced. So God went to great lengths to ensure that we were free to choose. This is essential to understand.
To make man’s ability to choose entirely valid God even permitted viable competitors for man’s affections. Consider God’s creation of Eve. He made her attractive to Adam in every way and Adam, likewise to Eve. Would man continue to love God if there were another viable candidate and a perceived need to choose? The perception of a need to choose was only that; a perception. Because God is good, He wanted man to receive His love fully and yet love others with like passion.
To facilitate the function of man’s free-will God placed two trees in the Garden. Eating of the Tree of Life would enable man to live forever. Eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would result in man’s death.
The question these two trees would answer is whether or not man would trust God’s goodness. Choosing only the Tree of Life would be the result of that trust. Not trusting God’s goodness would compel man to choose the tree that promised to give knowledge of good and evil so man could know for himself.
God was saying in this choice, “I Am Good! The only source of information you need about good is Me. Will you trust Me?”
God is asking the same question today, “Will you trust Me?” As we trust Him, He releases the knowledge of good to us as we need it. The result is that sin’s reign in our life ends and we reign in life as we were designed by our Creator; in righteousness (We are in righteousness as we trust He, Who alone is righteous).
God designed us to rule this planet in partnership with Him. As we trust Him and His ways, righteousness, justice and love and goodness prevail.
This is God’s good plan for each of us alone and all of us together. God really is Good at the core!