Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. (Mark 10:18)
Most of us have heard the expression that God is good – all the time. A friend of mine says it this way. “God is good and he’s in a good mood.” Statements like that have developed because people, including many believers, aren’t sure that it’s true. People wonder if God is good only part of the time and only with his favorites. Or they may think that maybe he’s good (moral/righteous) but he still seems to be angry all the time. The question of God’s inherent goodness is vital.
Everything in our faith stands on the truth of what Jesus said. God is good. It is only when we believe that God is good all the time that we can have faith in his promises. It is only then that we can develop an unconditional trust in him. Anything less leaves us on shaky ground and yet my experience tells me that many believers, in their hearts, are still uncertain of that goodness.
Satan’s great strategy in the garden was to undermine Adam and Eve’s confidence in the goodness of God. In his dialogue with Eve, Satan implied that God might not be so good. He suggested that there were many good things that Adam and Eve deserved that God was withholding from their lives. He suggested that the warning about death related to eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a ruse to keep them from becoming gods themselves. He suggested that God was a liar and a manipulator who was keeping them from the best things in life. The only evil in the Garden that day was Satan. But Satan always calls evil good and good evil and so he accused the creator of being much less than a good and loving God.
As soon as Eve entertained the possibility that God wasn’t so good after all, she took and ate. Her doubts about the goodness of God created distrust in the goodness of his commandments because she had begun to distrust his character. Once we take the step of doubting God’s goodness then everything unravels. If we can’t trust God to be good all the time then we can’t trust his commandments to be good for us all the time. When we arrive at that perspective, we will feel compelled to pick and choose the commandments of God that we estimate will be in our best interest while leaving the others alone. We will have to serve God with reservations and maintain control over the most critical parts of our lives because we won’t be confident that he will always act in our best interest.
I’ve discovered through the years that Eve’s distorted view of God seems to be indelibly imprinted on our fallen nature so that even believers often filter out the goodness of God written on every page of the Bible and camp on those moments when his righteousness and the persistent rebellion of men forced him to release judgment on a man or a nation. That post-sin filter from the Garden casts God as a perfectionistic, authoritarian Father who gives gifts grudgingly and only to those who have recently earned his approval. He is seen as a Father who gladly sends hardship or even illness to teach us a lesson so that we might do better next time. He is often seen as a father who delights in “taking off his belt” and dealing out his “righteous” judgments.
When that view overshadows the true revelation of God’s goodness, our trust can only be sporadic, our expectation for answered prayers will vary with our perceived personal “spirituality and goodness,” and we will often view every hardship and loss in life as something God has “done to us.” Obviously, our walk with the Lord and growth in the Spirit will not flourish in such a mental environment. These misperceptions of God are the very strongholds (see 2 Cor.10:4-5) that keep us from healing, freedom, and moving powerfully in the gifts of the Spirit.
Those things are predicated on trusting that God is always for us; believing his truth about who we are and what Christ has done for us; confronting the enemy with the confidence that Jesus is who he says he is and that he will back us up with his own power and authority. To receive those gifts from God, we must at least begin to remove fleshly filters that deletes all evidence of his goodness and begin to see the goodness of God through the revelation of the Spirit.
If God is good by nature, then he can only do good things. He can only treat us in good ways. He can only send us good gifts and he can only want good things for us. If he is good by nature then he never lies, never breaks promises, never manipulates, and never discards us. If he is good, then he opposes evil and delights in helping us overcome the enemy in our own lives. If he is good he always meets our needs and always does what is best for us – even when we can’t see it in the beginning.
Is God good? Jesus said he is. Is Jesus good? If you said yes then remember that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father (see Heb.1:3). Once I commit by faith to the proposition that God is good all the time, then my eyes will begin to see his goodness in everything. I will not blame him for the consequences of my own bad decisions or the bad decisions of Adam. I will not blame him for the works of Satan and I will not have to stand on my head to explain why a good God would seemingly do such bad things – because he doesn’t.
If you honestly struggle with the goodness of God in your life then take Jesus as his word. Choose to believe that God is good and always wants what is best for you. Then ask the Holy Spirit to begin to enable you to see his goodness in everything and to discern where God is interjecting his grace and goodness even in tragic circumstances created by sin not by God. Look for his goodness. Confess his goodness. Confirm his goodness. Celebrate his goodness. It will change your life and open the doors to your healing, freedom and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life. Be blessed by his goodness today.
