God is Good, Period.

God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. 

This mantra has been repeated so often we know how to respond to it without even thinking. Without ever interrogating what God’s goodness means we know exactly how to respond. 

I hope to begin a conversation exploring the goodness of God that we may not reduce His goodness to a cliche, but understand the depth, the breath, and the magnitude of it.

To start, God is good, period. Not God is good, if. Or God is good, when. Not even good is good because. He’s not good IF He heals you from cancer. He’s not good WHEN He provides you with the money you need to pay your bills. He’s not good BECAUSE He protected you from a car accident. God is just good. No qualifier necessary.

We often try to define God and His goodness on the basis of His relationship with us. It is true, our miracle testimonies are evidence of His goodness. However, they are neither the definers nor quantifiers of His goodness. God is self-sufficient. He thus is not defined by anything outside of Himself.

When God told Moses to go to Egypt to free the Children of Israel Moses asked Him the question, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” Exodus 3:13 ESV 

God’s response here is interesting. God doesn’t say, “I am the One who created the heavens and the earth. I am the one that is responsible for every breath in your body. I am the ones that causes hearts to beat and allows them to cease. I am the one responsible for every crop growing from the ground and every animal roaming upon it.” No, God doesn’t run through a resume, a list of things that our human minds would believe would solidify His divinity and sovereignty. Instead, He says this, “I am who I am.” Exodus 3:14 ESV

It is important to remember, God is both eternal and self-sufficient. He existed before all things. 

The Bible greets us with the words, “In the beginning, God.” (Genesis 1:1) This simple phrase tells us one important and complex thing, God is eternal. God, Himself exists outside of time as He is the creator of time. He created day and night (Genesis 1:3-5). He created season and years (Genesis 1:14). God is a self-existing God. He is without a birthdate date or conception date. Before there was a beginning, there was already a God. God is everlasting, He is infinite in duration, without expiration, and without creation.

​Because He is eternal, He continues without delay, without interruption. He neither sleeps nor slumbers (Psalms 121:4). He is perpetual, existing without change. God is without a reference point. There was no rubric or metrics for His creation. Nothing He was modeled after. Nothing created Him or came before Him. He simply always was. He never was just getting started with the whole being God thing, never a novice, never a beginner. God is not a trial and error God. He doesn’t learn as He goes. He’s not practicing to make perfect or studying to improve His craft. His preeminent wisdom is the foundation of all things. He doesn’t switch up with culture or change with time. He is not affected by the change in seasons. His eternality illuminates His sovereignty. 

God’s self-sufficiency would seem to me an automatic indicator that who He is can not be contingent on His relationship with us, the way He blesses us, nor the miracles we witnessed Him perform. If God is the good God He says He is (Mark 10:18), His goodness can’t be defined on the basis of anything outside of Him for He existed before there was anything.

​Hebrews‬ ‭13:8 ESV tells us, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Hebrews 1:10-12 ESV speaks of Jesus by saying  
“10 And,
“You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
    and the heavens are the work of your hands;
11 they will perish, but you remain;
    they will all wear out like a garment,
12 like a robe you will roll them up,
    like a garment they will be changed.[a]
But you are the same,
    and your years will have no end.”

Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God 

In Deuteronomy 32:40 God speaks of Himself saying, “ I lift my hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever”

In 1 Timothy 1:17 Paul describes God as, “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever”

1 Samuel 15:29 .And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind”

Malachi 3:6 “For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed” 

If God is eternal, if He is the same yesterday, today and forever, if He is a God that never changes and has always existed, then He was the same God and a good God, before there was a sickness to heal, He was a good God when there was no lack that required provision, He was good even when there was no danger that called for the need for protection.
​
God was qualified to judge what was good in the beginning because He was good before there was one. 

God is good regardless of what He does or doesn’t do for us because He always was and He always will be. Our God is immutable. He is a Solid Rock. He is fixed.

He’s the God of both the hills and the valleys. He’s the same God when you’re riding high and when you’re feeling low. He’s the God of both the Alpha and the Omega. He’s the same God at the beginning of a thing as He is when it ends.

God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. 

Many question the goodness of God because their definition of God’s goodness in wrong. We think He is good because He heals thus when man dies of sickness we begin to question His goodness. We think He is good because He provides thus when we struggle financially we are no longer convinced God is good and assume His laws must not be good either. We think He is good because He answers our prayers so when we doesn’t our flesh challenges the goodness of God wondering if He actually does know us as perfectly as His Word would suggest. 

God is good because He is holy. He is the Lamb without spot or blemish. He is the God that is our High Priest able to die as a sacrifice for our sins because He himself knew no sin. 

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).

There is no one holy like the LORD; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God (1 Samuel 2:2).

You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell (Psalm 5:4).

Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come (Revelation 4:8).

You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy (Leviticus 19:2).

There is no trace of darkness in God, not a spec of sin, not an ounce of flaw, defect, or deficiency. God is faithful and without iniquity (Duet. 32:4). He is perfect. The mistake of believing that God is good on the basis of His deeds and not His holiness would lead us to value deeds over the divine and thus rest in our deeds over His grace. We are not counted good in God’s eyes because of what we do. We are counted good in His eyes because He sees us through the blood He shed in His holiness.

God is hyper-aware of our sins, yet He loves us. God is hyper-aware of our flaws, yet He wants us. God is hyper-aware of all the things wrong with us. Thus, He knows how fully incapable we are at fixing ourselves. He knows that He is the only road to redemption. He is the only course for salvation and sanctification. He is the only one who can keep you from falling and capable of picking you up when you do.

We often ask the question, “why do bad things happen to good people?” But here’s the thing, none is good but God (Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19). We are all flawed, full of failures, guilty of many sins, more than we even realize. The truth is, there has only been one time in the history of the world when a bad thing happened to a good person. That was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. He is the only one good to have walked this earth, yet He experienced a level of wickedness unparalleled to any suffering we who are deserving has ever endured. He that was perfect took the punishment for those that are incapable of being good even if we tried. The more appropriate question to ask would be, “why do good things happen to bad people?” David had it right when he asked, “what is man that You are mindful of him? (Psalms 8:4)” We deserve nothing good, yet He is good to us anyway.

God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. 

When Adam ate of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, sin entered into the world (Romans 5:12). Our flesh inherited a sin trait. Adam’s fall caused for all those that came after him to be born wicked and not righteous. 

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 51:5) KJV

I was brought forth in [a state of] wickedness; In sin my mother conceived me [and from my beginning I, too, was sinful]. (Psalm 51:5) AMP

For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5) NLT

I was born to do wrong,  a sinner before I left my mother’s womb. (Psalm 51:5) ERV

We are far from good. We have sinned and broken God’s law over and over again. The wages of our sins should have afforded us death long ago. But God.

"Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure." (Ephesians‬ ‭1:4-5‬‬)

The Eternal God who exists in the enteral past and eternal future paved a way for us to be reconciled with Him.  

Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover their sin. They tried to use the work of their hands to hide their inquiries. They looked to the things God created, the things God gave to man, and thought they could blot out their transgressions. We are neither saved by grace nor proven righteousness by our riches. We can not be sanctified by golden cafes, the things God has given us hold no deity in them. You are not sanctified by your ability to keep the law, have a picture-perfect family, or a beautiful home. You are sanctified by doing what David did. Acknowledge your sin, confess your sin, and be forgiven by the Almighty.

"I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord," and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah" (‭‭Psalms‬ ‭32:5)

There is no power in the works of imperfect people. But, how great and sufficient is the power of the finished work of the cross, perfectly complete, needing the addition of nothing nor the efforts of anyone. Rest in the knowledge that you need a Savior, and you have access to the only One able to be just that.

“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

He died, that we may live.
This is amazing grace.
That is Good News about a Good God.
​
God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.