The Goodness of God (Hope Church Spoken Word)

Our God is worthy of His name because His name encompases His eternal identity and He proves His identity to us over and over again.  Every name of Jesus represents His good heart. Healer. Redeemer. Hope. Savior. Hiding Place.

We can place our hope in who Jesus is because He doesn’t change like shifting shadows; He never ceases to be relevant; He doesn’t fade or falter; He is the same yesterday today and tomorrow.  He is constant and True. Always.

He has hidden His glory and goodness in everything He has created- and WE get to be seekers of His goodness every day.

Like David I am confident that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  So I will be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Even as I experience pain and loss, I will praise God because I have tasted and seen that HE IS GOOD.

God’s goodness is constantly unfolding around us.  His compassions never fail- his mercy is new every morning- His faithfulness is so far beyond anything we are capable of as humans.

And because God is the Great I Am, the Alpha and Omega, the Author of our very lives- His goodness is not bound by anything.  His goodness cannot be cancelled out by our circumstances, defeated by death, overcome by evil, or drowned by darkness.

No! Rather, His goodness bends to meet us in every single circumstance.  Every joy and trial allows us to experience the good nature of God in new ways.  In suffering we meet Him as comforter- in fear He becomes our refuge and shelter- in weakness we discover that His joy is our strength- in darkness we encounter Him as our light- and in times of abundance and worship we discover that He inhabits our praise.

Yes God is always with us.  And He is always good.

And WE were designed for His praise.  Our very lives are made to point back to the goodness and image of God.  Because Jesus loved us, we love Him. Because He died for us, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices.  Because He breathed life into us, we breathe it back out in praise.

Everything we can ever give back to God was given to us by Him first.

In His goodness He gave us all of Himself- and yet our response to Him is often stingy and small.  We allow impatience, disappointment, and discontent to blind us to the ocean of God’s grace and goodness that He longs for us to see.  And when we shut out His goodness, we forfeit the blessing that comes through praising Him. We rob Him of the praise due His name.

Jesus said that if we are silent the very rocks will cry out in praise-

But I prefer those rocks stay silent and we fill this place with God’s praise.  Let’s thank God for His Holiness, His love, His mercy, and His vast goodness. Let’s remember every good thing He has done for us.  Let’s tell God that we’ll become even more undignified than this in pursuit of His praise. Let’s tell Him what He means to us and shout out His faithfulness.  

He is worthy…and He is good.

(This post was originally created as part of a Thanksgiving Worship Service at Hope Church.  I wanted to share it with you here, and also to follow up with a challenge to you: During our worship service we had a brief time for people to shout out or share something simple that they love about God or what He has done for them.  I encourage you to leave a comment with your own thanksgiving or praise to God!)