God is good -- all the time!
In the person of Jesus He created all that exists.
He sustains the harmony and order of the universe. He
continually blesses us with good food to eat. He provides for
all our needs, and Jesus opens His arms to us in relationship --
eagerly offering forgiveness for all of our wrongs. He washes
us clean and offers to share His life with us -- not just now, but for
eternity. God is more than good -- He is extremely good, and
He is good all of the time!
REMEMBERING
GOD'S GOODNESS
In
flush times, when the economy soars -- all wrapped up in the
goodness of this life, we tend to forget the good God who is
the source of it all. It is He who gives us our life and our
sustenance through the lifegiving and reproductive processes He
created. Everything we are blessed with has its ultimate
beginnings in His creation: good soil and water to produce
our food -- natural resources from which our homes and all of our
material possessions come, and even our ability to be productive and to
acquire wealth -- all of it is from God.
THE
GOOD NEWS OF HIS GREATEST GOODNESS
God's greatest news for us is that He loves each
of us and wants a relationship with us in which we can experience His
goodness and love ever more fully. Jesus' sacrifice of
Himself opened the door to that relationship. He was God
adding humanity to His divinity, living as a human perfectly, the
sinless creator of all dying for all of sinful humanity as the perfect
atonement for our sins, wiping our slates clean of sin and
guilt. And if that wasn't enough, in the relationship of love
Jesus offers us is the promise of Eternal Life. This is good
news indeed, for though we ignore it most of the time, we can't escape
the fact that human existence is finite. It all goes by so
quickly.
MORE
GOOD NEWS
God's love is always there for us. His
graciousness is always available to us. It doesn't depend
upon anything we do except believing Him and opening ourselves to
Him. Perhaps considering a huge dark stage with black floor
and black drapes, and with a single enormous spotlight shining directly
down will help picture it. The light from the spotlight
represents God's love and graciousness. We're in the dark
part of the stage and we can choose to remain in the darkness or move
into the circle of light shining down from above. In the
darkness you can't see what you're doing -- you bump into others --
after all, you're in the dark. It's chaotic. In the
light, however, you can distinctly see where you're going -- you can
see yourself and others clearly, and you easily move among them without
mishap.
God's love is always there for us. His
salvation is always there for us. Forgiveness is always there
for us. God's graciousness is always there for us.
God is good -- all the time.
His goodness manifest in Jesus is for all times. |
