IS GOD GOOD ALL THE TIME?

IS GOD GOOD ALL THE TIME?

                Our general theme for this week is the goodness of God and in recent years a saying has become popular.  “God is good all the time. All the time God is good.” Well, is this true? Absolutely it is true and yet many people question this as they consider the shape our world is in.

                First of all we have to ask ourselves who made the world the way it is today? Not God! He created everything good and designed us to live forever in paradise. So if our world is in a shambles today it is we who chose the wrong god somewhere along the way and we continue to choose the wrong gods on a daily basis. After all, Satan is the god of chaos and he is currently the god of this world.

                I think the saying, “God is good all the time. All the time God is good” is sometimes used a bit carelessly today. Some have used this idea to put forth the false doctrine that God in His goodness will not judge sin or the sinner and that in the end He will just give in and take us all to heaven. But this is far from the truth.

                If we want to understand God’s goodness we need to think of Him in terms of being a parent. As our all-knowing heavenly Father, He holds an eternal perspective on our lives. We, with our extremely limited perspective sometimes want Him to do things our way, to answer our prayers the way we see the issues… to make life good from our perspective.

                Even as parents ourselves we realize that we don’t always give our kids what they want for we have a broader perspective of their lives than they do. So we force them to do things like take naps, clean their room, make their bed, take out the trash and feed the dog. The child grumbles and complains because he doesn’t know that he is in training for adulthood and that his parents want him to become a responsible, organized, productive person who can hold a job, raise a family and make the world a better place for everyone.

                It is within this context that we can see why judgment must come to our children when they fall short of their training… especially if they slack off or even worse yet, rebel against their training and curse us to our face. First of all they do not realize that it is they themselves that they hurt the worst as they create for themselves a future that is paved with their own wrong choices and a harvest of bad seed.

                God knows and understand that judgment and justice, good and evil, right and wrong must be established and adhered to if a society is to be in any way livable. And society is made up of individuals who if they are been trained and disciplined to manifest good character and reasonably right choices, this will contribute to the betterment of all of society in general.

                In this great body of humanity we are either an organ, or a tumor… we are either healthy or sick… we are either a builder or a user… a vital part or a cancer.

                When we endure with patience the disciplines of God and we learn His truth and we live by His Spirit, then we grow up into productive citizens, not only of God’s kingdom, but in the kingdom of this present age as well.

                So if we are to understand the goodness of God, then we are going to have to share His eternal perspectives. His goodness is not based on instant gratification, but on the eternal plans for us for which we are in training.

                Paul informs us that” our bodies are temples of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in us.” 1 Cor. 3:16

                What this tells us is that we are equipped with everything we need to grow up into God’s eternal plan for us. It tells us that our training here on earth involves learning how to live by the Spirit of God that resides in us rather than the flesh which belongs to fallen Adam. We have not only been rescued from this prison planet, but we are in training to reign with Christ in His eternal realm once our training is over.

                As parents we ruled our children under the rule of law with the intent that someday they would live by the spirit of what we taught them to become productive and happy adults. Likewise god ruled His people in Old Covenant times by Law in hopes that with the coming of His Son to demonstrate what maturity looked like, we would begin to live by His Spirit, for in truth the Law could never bring us into the fullness of what God pictures for us in His eternal view.

                Paul gives us this great perspective in Phil 1:21-24. He says:

                For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.”

                What this tells us is that there is a reward at the end of the journey.  For those who have learned the lessons that God set before us, our death is not a loss, but a tremendous gain for we go to be with Him. And we are not alone in this journey for Paul also says in Phil. 1:6:

                “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus”

                While Paul assures us on one hand that we are not saved by works, He on the other hand acknowledges the fact that we are in training and every choice we make and every action of our lives is either contributing to our eternal goals, or sending us down a wrong path. We do have choices to make and discipline to receive without complaint and chaffing. He says in 1 Phil. 1:29-30:

                “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear to be in me.”

                The writer of Hebrews points out our need for discipline saying:

                “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him, for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline…All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” Heb. 12:5-14 (parts) and then He tells us in verse 14 that we must pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see God

                So we are in training and under the discipline of God and our response to it is highly important. Salvation is a free gift. We cannot earn it or it isn’t free. But our training to rightly use this gift and to reign with Christ as royal sons and daughters, requires that we go through the disciplines that Jesus and Paul and all who follow Jesus must go through and it begins with taking up our cross and following Him and it involves embracing His eternal purposes for our life and the preparation that goes with it.

                And just because we are no longer under law, doesn’t mean that we are living by everything our flesh desires. Our flesh belongs to the kingdom of Satan and our Spirit belongs to the Kingdom of Christ. Therefore we must learn to live by the Spirit of Christ that is within us so that we can grow up in all aspects into Christ “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to the mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. Eph. 4:13

                So when we say that God is good all the time and all the time God is good, we must say so with the full understanding that God’s goodness is not a license to sin, but an entrance into God’s eternal discipline and training according to His perspectives for our lives and not our own limited perspectives.

                Trust Him and you will not be disappointed.