We hear a lot about God’s goodness. But how is it an attribute? This daily devotional looks at how God reveals His goodness and invites us to it.
Nuggets
- God shows us the goodness of His character in many ways.
- We should experience the goodness of God’s character.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in the Finding Our Center series
This was another topic in which I found limited sermons on God’s goodness being an attribute. If they talked about it being an attribute, it was just a statement, not an explanation.
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Let's Put It into Context #2
Hmmm. We haven’t defined goodness yet. I really liked Harris’ definition. He wrote, “Goodness is the perfection of things for which they are desirable; perfection imports freedom from all defects, and fulness (sic) of all excellences, and is chiefly seen in the being, working, end of things …”
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Goodness is the condition of being morally excellent and perfect, the overflow of God’s magnanimity.
God’s Goodness Revealed
“How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you. In the presence of everyone you have acted for those who take refuge in you” (Ps. 31: 19 CSB)
God shows us the goodness of His character in many ways.
Spurgeon gave us a list of how we see and have seen God’s goodness.
- The Plan of Salvation
- God’s grace
- Forgiveness
- Justification
- Laid-up treasures
- Eternal life
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God shows His goodness to believers and non-believers alike. It is one way in which He takes care of those made in His image.
Glossary
Maclaren made a great point that was echoed by Miller. Miller wrote, “The Divine goodness is not emptied out in heaps at our feet, when we first start in faith’s pathway. Rather, it is kept in reserve for us until we need it, and then disbursed.”
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God hasn’t revealed all of His goodness to us. We have only seen part of it.
God has so much more goodness that He wants to share with us. Forsyth called it a “… treasury of inexhaustible wealth.”
Priceless. Uncountable. Unending. Good. We’ve not seen anything yet!
An Invitation to God’s Goodness
“Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him!” (Ps. 34: 8 CSB)
We should experience the goodness of God’s character.
Most of the sermons I read considered taste and see as invitations. The Homilist saw it as a call to delight in God’s goodness. In order to fully experience this delight, we need freedom from the guilt of sin and to feel gratitude.
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We can delight in God’s goodness when we taste and see because that means we experience it. We really don’t know God’s goodness until we are the recipient of that goodness.
Blood pointed out the word order. He felt that taste was before see because we may see it first, but we don’t really know it. We don’t fully see it until we experience it.
That experience builds trust in God. We can trust Him because He will use His goodness for our good (Rom. 8: 28).
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Jay reminded us that God’s goodness shouldn’t just stay with us. It needs to reach others through us, even strangers.
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Jowett said that we need to experiment with God’s goodness. He meant that we should evaluate everything to make sure it is of God and how we should use it to grow.
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I think that we can combine Jay and Jowlett’s concepts. When we experiment with our faith, we use it to witness to others. We cannot quantify and qualify our faith until we have a good handle on it. What better way to solidify our faith than to share it with others?
Price took the discussion on God’s goodness another way. He said that God’s goodness is contrasted with our sin.
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That is the preconceived notion that I started with when I began looking up the sermons. We’ve previously defined good, in the biblical sense, as the workings of God within His people.
The polar opposite of good is evil or sin. Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
So, I see God’s goodness coming out of His purity. Regardless of the manifestation of His goodness, it stems from His sinlessness.
Birch told us that God pours His goodness on everyone. McCulloch clarified that as His “… distinguishing goodness and blessings are extended only to whom He manifests Himself in another way than He doth unto the world, and who believe on His Son according to the Gospel.”
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I think they both are right. God blesses non-believers through the sun and the rain. He blesses them through life itself. He provides them knowledge, skills, and abilities so that they can live their lives.
Believers are rewarded with blessings. He provides abundantly. Each blessing is used to grow us to be like Him.
Making the Connections
There was a great nugget in the Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons’ sermon. They wrote, “There is something more in religion than the mere profession, or outward form; there is the exercise of mental powers; a tasting and seeing the Lord is good. This is personal, and known only to ourselves.”
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We can’t just do the lip service or just be a good person. Our mind has to be involved. I would add, so does our heart, soul, and strength.
Glossary
We do have to make it personal. We must make a personal decision to accept God’s gift of salvation.
- Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from evil and the consequences of sins to replace them with good and eternal life.
- The consequences of sin are spiritual death and physical separation from God.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
- Eternal life is the promise of living eternally – even if we have died in this life – because we have admitted our sins, believed Jesus as Savior and Redeemer, and confessed God as Sovereign Lord.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
How Do We Apply This?
- Observe God’s goodness. We can’t rationalize it as something else.
- Remember the times God showed us His goodness and access more opportunities where He will do so again to add to our memory banks.
- Remember the dates when God poured His goodness on us. Celebrate the anniversaries.
- Allow God to remove the guilt of sin from us.
- Express gratitude to Him.
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I think part of our problem in describing and processing God’s goodness is it is so beyond our understanding, we really can’t describe it. We just have to believe that God is inherently good and try to live like Him.
Father God. You are good. You bestow this goodness on all of Your creation. You bless Your children with more. Lord, we want to have Your goodness as a character trait in us. Amen.
What do you think?
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