Recognize True Goodness

Throughout this year, each day of the month, I'm "Treasure Hunting" in a Psalm. I've created a "Ponder Every Morsel of Truth" Book to record the truths as I learn them. The ninth of each month, I'm studying Psalm 100. Here's what Treasure I found today.

The Lord is good. His love is forever, and his loyalty goes on and on. Psalm 100:5 (NCV)

Good: beautiful, best, better, bountiful, cheerful, fine, glad, graciously, joyful, kindly, kindness, the best, precious.

"For the Lord is good." This sums up his character and contains a mass of reasons for praise. He is good, gracious, kind, bountiful, loving; yea, God is love. He who does not praise the good is not good himself. The kind of praise inculcated in the Psalm, viz. that of joy and gladness, is most fitly urged upon us by an argument from the goodness of God. The Treasury of David

Goodness is a very comprehensive quality. It is love, kindness, benevolence, that which leads you to wish well and to do good to those around you; and the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord, because it is so full of his works and ways, which are the fruits and manifestations of his goodness. Pulpit Commentary Homiletics

God is good. God Himself is good. He is not only full of goodness, He is good. Because He is good, He does good things. However, His goodness is not based on what He does, rather what He does is because He is good. 

We often measure of the ‘goodness’ of people by how generous they are, how much they give or do for others. Yet, just because someone DOES something good, does not make them “good”.  Their motives could be very wrong.—like trying to buy favor or a position, etc. 

Yet, because God is good—first and foremost—He graciously does good. His character is that of goodness and that produces kindness. In God we can recognize true goodness!

But if God is good, why do bad things happen? The ultimate answer to that is “sin”. God gave us free-will, to make choices. And sin has consequences. When God allows bad things to happen, it could be for several reasons: 1. to judge, or bring punishment for disobedience  2. to bring glory to Himself 3. to get our attention, so that we acknowledge Who God is.  Also remember, that God may have reasons which we cannot understand.

Think of a parent/child relationship.  Many times the parent does something which the child sees as “not good” but in reality the parent knows that it is “very good”. The parent‘s action or lack of action, might be for protection, teaching, discipline, or the timing. The same is true of God, our Father. What we may think is “good” is not good at all, and what we think of as “bad” may be the best!    

God is good. That is a truth based upon God Almighty Himself. He can not change, therefore, He was, He is, and always will be good. And because He is good, He does good things for us.

What good things has God done for you lately? He’s done so much for me! 1. He provided a beautiful sunrise this morning. 2. He sent birds to sing to me this morning. 3. He made me laugh as the silly squirrels played “tag” through the snow this morning. Those are just a few things that God in His goodness, gave to me this morning. 

To create a positive day, I need to stop and recognize true goodness—God Himself; then praise God because He is good; then, I need to stop and thank God for sharing His goodness with me.