June 20, 2021 GOD IS A GOOD GOD
Psalm 34:8, 84:11, 100:5 “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” “For the Lord is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” “For the Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever; and His faithfulness to all generations.”
James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
We are in error if allow circumstances to cause us to question the goodness of God. God is good even when our circumstances are not. The age old question I would like to try to deal with today is “If God is good, why do bad things happen to good people?” It is a major spiritual breakthrough for us when we come to know that He is good-even when we find ourselves going through the valley or in the midst of one of the storms of life. Even though God has, and is, renewing us and has made us new creations, we still live in a fallen world with all of the repercussions and the fall-out of sin. And, even though we are light, we live in a dark world. Jesus made it clear that we would experience trials in this life and that we are not exempt from difficulties. For many years we have been exposed to a lie-from well-meaning people-that says that “If you give your life to Jesus, everything will be fine.” So, the first step for us is not to judge the goodness of God according to our circumstances. So, why do bad things sometimes happen? I certainly do not have a full understanding of that, but we know that God does not cause bad things to happen; again, ‘bad things’ originate in the dark world where God is rejected. God’s plan for life on earth is pictured in the Garden of Eden before sin entered to world. It requires faith on our part, but we must believe that God does use the ‘bad things’ for good-even when we do not understand how- to those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. Romans 8:28. Knowing that God is good does not mean that we should never feel the pain or deny the hurt we sometimes feel when things are difficult-when bad things happen. God tells us to comfort others and to bear one another’s burdens. In John 16:33, Jesus warned us that we would, not might, have trials in this world, and He also said in the same verse that we could have peace even in the trials because He had overcome the world-and He is in us and we are in Him; we share in His overcoming. Let us not falsely believe that because we trust Jesus as our Savior, everything will always be good; but let us know deep within that whatever happens, God will use it for good for those who love Him.
James 1:2-4 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
1 Peter 5:6-7 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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