The other day, a friend posted on her Facebook page, “God is good, all the time. when it appears that He is not, HE IS GREAT!” This is certainly true. There is never a time when God is not good, and there really is never a time when he is not great. Due to the fact that I like to take good sayings and play with them, I would state it a bit differently.
Many of us know that God is good. “Of course he’s good, he’s God!” There is nothing in God that is not good. God is holy, and totally perfect. God is good. I can see where that statement can lead people to see God as a being so far above us and so good that we just can’t measure up or please him. It is true that God is pure good, and that, in ourselves, we can not measure up to God’s goodness. What we sometimes forget in our day-to-day is the fact that Jesus does measure up, and if we are in him, God sees and loves us as he does Jesus. So, I would add something to what my friend posted, the words “to us.”
I would write the statement as, “God is good to us all the time. When it appears that he is not, HE IS GREAT TO US!” It is a small difference, with what I believe are huge implications. Think about it. This God who created the universe, who is sovereign, who is so far above sin that we can’t even imagine it, this God loves us with a pure, holy, everlasting love. This pure, holy God loves us just as he loves his Son. God is not an angry judge who is looking at us to see where we are screwing up so he can punish us. God is not a Father who withholds things from us to make us toe the line or to get back at us because we have somehow displeased him. Because of what Christ has done, and because we are one with Christ, God is never more pleased with us or less pleased with us than he is with Christ. The Father loves the Son. We are in the Son. The Father loves us.
We are told in Scripture that we have been given a spirit that leads us to call God, “Abba.” In today’s terms, we could use the name, “Daddy.” There is a saying, “Anyone can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad.” That’s the idea behind calling the Creator of all things, “Abba.” Think of your concept of the perfect dad. Now multiply that by infinity and you begin to get an idea of Abba.
The God who is good, even great, all the time is the Father who loves us, and is good, even great, to us all the time. Never forget that God loves you. Not only that, God likes you. He is pleased with you. He is good, TO YOU!