God Is Good

How do you keep life from taking you for a ride? The life of Joseph teaches us various principles and today we will look at a third principle.

        The third principle is God is Good. This is a core concept when considering God. The concept of God’s goodness is a summary concept that includes the fact that God is righteous, just, loving, holy, etc. To better grasp the importance of this concept let us look at an opposite—what if God was even sometimes BAD?

This is not farfetched for many cultures have gods that are bad. In Greek mythology there are gods that are bad, and even the good gods could not be trusted to always do that which was good. Can you imagine what it would feel like to get up in the morning and after experiencing a few bad events in your day realize that God had decided to be bad that day. My first thought would be to run back to bed and hide under the covers but He might set my house on fire! What if God threw a fit like we do when things aren’t going our way? What if He did this when we refuse to do His will? Even the worst pessimist could not even imagine things being this bad.

        But Joseph, and the Bible, has no such view of God. That is why Joseph chose to trust God in the midst of His challenges when God had seemingly been ‘bad’ to him (Choosing not to sin against God & acknowledging that God is the one who blesses him to interpret dreams—40:8) and later thanking God for being good to him through the very acts that his brothers meant to hurt him with—“ As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (50:20). The book of James tells us that we are never to think that God is out to get us or to set us up for bad to occur to us for He can never be that way—

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.  (James 1:13—17).

        So, the next time you’re tempted to view God as bad please remember that God is always good. May this great truth calmly guide you through even your most challenging day.

“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”    John 3:17 (KJV)