God is Good!

K-Lai — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 20:48:00 -0700

God’s amazingly good, isn’t He? He doesn’t need us for anything, so we can’t offer Him anything He doesn’t already own. Even our lives – though our choices and thoughts are independent of Him, He brings all things together for His glory. I suppose He doesn’t own our love – by His grace and love we have the free will to reject Him and love something/someone other than Him. But our love for Him is enabled by His love for us, and through Jesus Christ. So He is still the originator of all things, and the creator of all things.

It’s a comforting thought – no matter what I do or what I want, my primary purpose has nothing to do with what I give to God, but everything to do with how I respond to God. So there’s no need to run myself ragged with various projects or disciplines that attempt to glorify God with my own strength. While the disciplines of reading Scripture, prayer, and the like are important to the Christian life, they don’t foster intimacy with God any more than reading books and talking foster intimacy with your spouse. Let’s learn to respond to God, rather than expect God to respond to us. That’s where true worship comes – responding to God in the right ways, as an astute theologian pointed out.

So I’ve been spending time thinking about how good God is and how I don’t have to do anything. I don’t deserve Him, and yet He pursues me and calls me by name. He loves me unconditionally, with forgiveness and grace to deal with my imperfections. He’s showered me with so many gifts to enjoy – why don’t I enjoy them? Why am I not thankful? “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights…” (James 1:17). And it’s His delight to give good gifts to those He loves. He also rewards those “who earnestly seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). So it’s a heavenly right and privilege to enjoy what He has given us and praise Him for what He has taken away.

Every blessing You pour out I’ll turn back to praise
And when the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your name!
Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your glorious name!

k-lai.com: God is Good!

God is Good!