Is God Good?
Movement Live Notes
God is goodness. He cannot be anything else but good. He is good because that is His character, not just because of the things that He has done or the things He has given. We must stop trying to attribute the characteristic of being good to what a person has done. We have to stop trying to define God the way we define man. He's good because he is God. There is really no more to it than that. Psalm 107:31 says, “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” God is all the time, and all the time, He is good. Despite our letdowns and disappointments. God is good. When you can save that God is good in the pain, you truly know that He is. There are those of us who only say He is good when things in our lives are easy or smooth sailing. But God is good all the time. In pain, in suffering, in persecution, God is good. God has been good throughout this pandemic. He is not fickle. God doesn't have good days or bad days. God is eternal. He is everlasting. He will not and cannot change. God is good. He is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. He is good. The God of the mountain is still the God in the valley.
Our encouragement today is to praise God. Praise Him for his goodness. Not for the good that He has done, but praise God for his goodness. That can be hard to do when you feel that God has done nothing good recently in your life, but we have got to stop treating God like He is a cosmic Coke machine or a genie in a bottle. He's not as good as the last good act that He did. He is good because he is God. We interpret a good based on how we've come to know and understand what good is. This causes us to question if God is really good because we interpret good in a selfish way. We process it for our glory, for our greatness, for our will, and for our own pleasure. I'm encouraging that we seek out ways to experience God so that we can better interpret His word, not through the lens of ourselves.
When we embrace the purpose of the pain, our pain becomes part of the process. As the pain becomes a part of the process, our perspective changes. In fact, it may not even be pain anymore. Instead, it's simply a part of the process, and it will lead you to perform and produce from a place of pure and holy passion. We will begin to see God be glorified, and we will be excited about Him being glorified. So, family, our prayer today is that in your contemplative time, you embrace purpose. If you are not clear on your personal purpose, God's universal purpose is evident throughout His word. His universal purpose, through all of us, no matter how it manifests particularly for you, is that we be reconciled to Him. That is purpose.
Friends, we pray that this LIVE will cause some contemplative moments for you that would produce gospel transformation in your lives. Remember that God is good; despite all the changes and challenges, God is good.
