There is a great saying that "God is good all the time, and all the time God is good". It really is so true and such good news to us all! What it means is that God is not just good, but God is FAITHFULLY good. He is faithful to be good all the time. God can never NOT be good! It is who He is. God IS good!
The Bible says, over and over again, that God is good:
Psalm 86:5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You.
1 Chronicles 16:34 O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
Psalm 119:68 You are good and do good; Teach me Your statutes.
Not only that, but the the Bible also says that God never changes:
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Malachi 3:6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
Numbers 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
So if God is good, and He never changes, that means we can trust that God will be faithful to always be good to us no matter what the circumstance or situation, even when we doubt His goodness! Because sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that God’s goodness towards us is based on our goodness towards Him. We may think that because the Bible says that "faith pleases God” then in times when we lack faith it means God is not pleased with us. So, in times when doubt God, or doubt that God is good, then we think God will not be good to us.
But the problem is how we define and practice faith. Jesus said that faith is like a mustard seed, and two important things about a seed are:
1. Seeds grow.
2. Seeds grow well if you put them in the right place.
What this means is that Jesus doesn’t expect us to have super strong, fully developed faith today or right away. He knows our faith is small and weak and has to grow. And the other thing it means is that we have to put our faith IN the right thing. When we think God is not going to be good to us because we lack faith, the focus of our faith is not God it is on ourselves. Like putting seed into bad soil, we are putting our faith in ourselves because we are focusing on the size of our faith. Instead, what we should do is focus on the size of God’s faithfulness.
Self-focused faith says “because my faith is small, God’s faithfulness and goodness towards me will be small.” But, God focused faith says “even though my faith is small, God will still be faithful in God-sized ways! Even when I struggle to believe that He is good, He is still going to be good to me, because that is who He is! I trust in God’s character more than my own!”
We see this in the story of the father who had a son that was demonized in Mark 9. He asked the disciples to cast out the demon but they couldn’t. At this point, if we were this dad, maybe some of us in this situation might think it’s because we doubt God’s goodness and ability and lack faith. But then the dad goes to Jesus and ask Jesus to help his son. Jesus tells the dad that all things are possible for those who believe. And then the dad says, “I believe, but help my unbelief!”
The dad was confessing that he has doubts and the next thing Jesus did was to heal his son! The dad’s doubts didn’t stop Jesus from being good to him and his son! Why? Because the dad said “I believe.” I think the dad was saying “Jesus, I trust you to be good despite my lack of faith!” This is what it means to put our faith in God’s faithfulness alone!
When we put our faith in God’s faithfulness we allow God’s faithfulness to be so much stronger and so much bigger than our lack of faith. God’s faithfulness and goodness towards us can’t be stopped even by our doubts when we trust in Him alone!
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