Is God Good?

“’Why do you call Me good?’ Jesus asked him. ‘Only God is truly good.” (Luke 18:19 NLT)

When you think of someone or something “good,” what do you think of? I tend to think of pinto beans and cornbread or cherry pie, but what about you? When you think of God, do you think of Him as good?

David Jeremiah wrote in a recent Turning Point devotional: “Think about the wars, acts of terror, onslaughts of savagery against innocent people, government-sponsored acts of genocide throughout history—it’s almost more than our sensibilities can bear when we consider how humanity has broken the heart of God over millennia. And we have to include our own failures to glorify God in thought, word, and deed. And yet God is ‘longsuffering toward [humanity], not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.’”

Depending on what we choose to focus our attention, it’s easy to conclude that God isn’t good. Because we don’t see Him moving in power to eliminate the cruel effects of sin, in the world and/or in our own individual lives. Would it be safe to assume, at least on some levels, God defines “good” differently than we do? However, on many other levels, He sees “good” exactly like we do.

The truth is, God is the source of all that is good. Without His presence in our world there would be nothing good – in people or in nature. The fact that we recognize that something is “good” is evidence in and of itself that God exists. But I ask the question in the title because in light of all that isn’t good in our world, it’s easy for God to either be left out of the equation, or for people to assume He can’t be good – i.e. the evil and badness in our world is His fault.

I’m not going to lie to you, there are things that bother me – a lot! Suffering children, hunger, such depravity revealed in and through how we as human beings treat each other. It’s discouraging and heart-breaking. Yet, the closer I get to the Lord, the more I realize, as much as it breaks His heart, He’s allowing it for a time, but He’s not ignoring or forgetting it exists.

Historically, to this day, when tragedy strikes, good people, and very often God’s people, are at the head of the lines of people wanting to help. Many hospitals, schools, orphanages, ministries to address hunger, slavery, trafficking, homelessness, fostering programs, adoption, and on and on are instituted by good people prompted by God’s love and mercy.

Just as there are people filled with the Holy Spirit, who love God and others, and who are seeking to live out their faith everyday in every way they possibly can, there are also people filled and ruled by Satan. Is Satan a defeated foe? Yes, of course, but until Jesus returns and puts Satan in his rightful place, we’re left in a spiritual “war-zone.”  

This should catch no believer in Jesus by surprise. In His Word, the Bible, there are many statements by Jesus warning us that we will suffer in this world. Yes, some more than others, but all of us will experience things on earth that won’t be any part of heaven.

Someone has rightly said: “Earth is all the hell that believers in Jesus will experience and all the heaven those who don’t know Him will experience.” We can focus on the horrible things that are happening in our world and in our personal lives, and let them turn us away from God. Or we can focus on Jesus and all that He has done for us, all the cruelty He endured on our behalf, and let Him guide us to ways that we can become a part of the solution to some of the evil in our world.

The choice is ours. I’ve made my choice to love and serve Jesus and seek to bring as much help and hope to those who struggle as I possibly can. I pray you’ll join me.

God is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo GOOD!

Blessings, Ed 😊