God is So Good

"Thou art good and doest good." Psalm 119:68

Many of us grew up singing the little chorus, "God I So Good." That song contains some profound theology, because the goodness of God is one of the infinite attributes of His character. If we're going to know God as He is, we must understand that He is good.

God's goodness can be defined as the collective perfections of His nature and the benevolence of His acts. In other words, God is good by nature and good in what He does.

When we go home to my parents' house every year, my mother cooks this big meal. Inevitably she will cook some unholy vegetable like squash or one of its cousins. You know, something that seems to have no purpose in creation. Anyway, when that vegetable bowl comes around, I just pass it right on. But my mother will say, "Boy, what do you think you're doing?"

Then I do my George Bush imitation. Remember when Bush said, "I'm the president, and I don't have to eat broccoli?" Well, I say to my mother, "Mama, I don't' want any squash. I'm a grown man. I don't have to eat squash."

But she says, "You are in my house. You didn't see a hotel sign outside that front door, did you?" She will take the bowl and start putting the squash on my late. And she will always put more squash on my plate than I would have if I had just gone ahead and taken it.

Then she says, "And you'd better eat it all. It's good for you." You know, she's right. Squash is good for you. Now I'd rather have German chocolate cake a la mode. I can get excited about that. But it's not good for me. Everything that's good does not necessarily taste good, look good, or give you a pleasant emotional experience. The issue of goodness is its source, not its experience.

The Bible declares in James 1:17: "Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." Anything that is authentically good has it source in God, because He is a good God who can only produce that which is good.

Think about it: If something is not good, it did not come from God. Don't let anyone tell you God is the source of evil.

By Tony Evans taken from "Time to Get Serious"
Bible Reading Guide:

Beginning to End: Deut. 32-34
Old and New Testaments Together: Deut. 10-12 & Mark 12:1-27
Historical: Deut. 32-34
Chronological: Numbers 35-36
Blended: Job 11-13 & I Cor. 5

The Bible reading guides will be taken from Back to the Bible