The Goodness of God

In one of the most well known passages of Scripture, the psalmist rejoiced, ‘My cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving-kindness will follow me all the days of my life’. Psa 23:5-6. The goodness of God was following him. This can be our testimony, for God has ordained goodness for us in this life. We likewise read in the Psalms, ‘How great is Your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you have wrought for those who take refuge in you before the sons of men’. Psa 31:19. This doesn’t mean that only ‘good things’ will happen to us according to our own view or expectations. However, God has ordained or wrought ‘goodness’ for us. God is good, and His goodness can follow us all the days of our lives.

When Jesus went about doing ‘good’ and healing, the onlookers were not simply observing a ‘good man’ and ‘good behaviour’. There is no doubt that He was a good man, but ‘He went about doing good and healing’. Acts 10:38. Goodness was following Him wherever He went. And when goodness is following you, people are not simply observing moral excellence or good behaviour. The New Testament refers to the fruit of the Spirit as being love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Gal 5:22-23. It is evident that kindness is not necessarily, of itself, goodness. When God is being good to us, He is not just being kind. When God is being good, He is working for you. He is supporting you. The Bible tells us that He supports our lot.

When goodness follows you, you can be confident that the work of God is adding substantially to you. The Scripture says that ‘faithful are the wounds of a friend’. Prov 27:6. He is doing good for us even when He is wounding us with faithful wounds. We don’t need a God in heaven who just likes us. Rather, He is changing us from one degree of glory to another. When we receive the goodness that God has ordained for us we find capacity to walk and live in the unique identity ordained for us.

Whatever your need, be it small or be it great, God wants to do good for you. Perhaps we feel like the psalmist, that because of our circumstances, we are dwelling in a ‘besieged city’. Psa 31:21. Perhaps it is just in the practise of life’s relationships. Maybe it is in your physical body. Maybe it’s in your emotional life. Is it in your attitudes, in your aspirations, in your disappointments? Perhaps you too could testify, ‘I think I may have made this harder than it needed to be’. Perhaps that is you. What a marvellous acknowledgement. Fall on the goodness of God and ‘see the goodness of God in the land of the living’. Psa 27:13.

Cameron Playsted

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Feature Articles
August 2008

Keeping your heart

Bearing His reproach

The staff of bread

The harmony of life

Honouring fatherhood

Elders and Deacons

Showing Virtue in tragedy

Becoming a seeker

The Goodness of God

The devotion of your youth

Increase by labour