God’s Account from the beginning was IT IS GOOD!
He declared ALL that He had made for mankind GOOD!
And then after He had made mankind in His image and likeness, blessed them, and gave them dominion over ALL that He had made, He looked around at this FINISHED environment that He placed man in and said VERY GOOD!
In Hebrew good is “tov.” The word “tov” at its ancient root means the good that surrounds the house with grace, beauty, love, health, and prosperity. Those are the parameters of good or tov that surrounded mankind… these were our conditions or environment in life.
There was no darkness, no death, no poverty, no lack, no sickness and no disease, etc – there was ONLY good because God is good and only goodness can flow from Him.
Prov 13:15 says that the way (or life) of the transgressor is continually hard.
We are not transgressors — we are sons in the image and likeness of our Father who is good! Our lives weren’t designed to be hard – but good! Father surrounded the house (His family) surrounded with grace, beauty, love, health and prosperity!
In the Old Testament tov is listed 562 times and Strong’s defines it as favorable, pleasant, festive (I like that one!), pleasing, well, better, right, best. Some of the translations of “good” in the KJV are beautiful, best, bountiful, at ease, joyful, prosperity, wealth.
In the New Testament, the Greek word for good and goodness is “agathos” and is mentioned 101 times. It describes goodness as something that originates from God and is empowered by Him in our lives. Good originates from God and is empowered by Him in our lives… I really like that!
Truly, life is good because God is good!
1 Chronicles 16:34: O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. Good in this scripture is called an absolute noun, meaning it follows another noun forming a single idea. Good is not an attribute of God. “Good” and God are one single thought. There is no “good” separated from God and then associated with Him. “Good” and God are the same thing…. good is who He is. He can’t be anything but good to you!
The Psalms talks a lot about the goodness of God
- Psalm 21:3 says that He leads us with blessings of good!
- Psalm 23:6 says that goodness and mercy (or chesed – His covenant love) follow us ALL the days of our life. – Every single day!!
- Psalm 25:8 says good and upright (or righteous) is the Lord – you are image and likeness of Him; as He is so are you! You are good and upright!
- Psalm 25:13 says we will dwell or abide in goodness!
- Psalm 34:10 says we will lack NO good thing!
- Psalm 119:68 says God is good and what He does is good!
- Psalm 145:9 says God is good to ALL and has compassion on ALL that He has made
- Psalm 84:11 says that He doesn’t withhold good from us!
- Psalm 65:11 says He crowns the year with goodness AND our paths drip with abundance (increase, fatness, become prosperous!) – this is what our years look like from God’s point of view and what we can expect!
- And Psalm 103:5 says He satisfies my mouth (ornament in Hebrew) with good – or literally He fills full my soul with good! My life is filled to the FULL with good – with grace, beauty, health, prosperity and love!
In Exodus 33 Moses asked God to please show him His glory — God responded that He would cause all His goodness to pass before him and proclaim His name to Moses
In other words, He would reveal His true character and nature to Moses. And in Exodus 34:6-7 we see the Name that He proclaimed. We see His nature revealed — mercy, grace, loving-kindness (chesed – covenant loyalty), truth, forgiveness, and holiness. God’s glory is His goodness. His goodness is His nature…. it’s who He is. He is merciful, gracious, love (chesed), truth, forgiveness and holiness!
Zephaniah 3:17 in God’s Word Translation says “The LORD your God is with you. He is a Hero who saves you. He happily rejoices over you, renews you with his love, and celebrates over you with shouts of joy.” I love that.
Psalm 91:15 He says He will rescue us and then throw us a party – New Covenant language would read that as He HAS rescued us!
The more I meditate on His goodness, the more I see Him in this light…. rejoicing over me, renewing me with His love, celebrating over me and throwing me a party!! I begin to see Him as Love… extravagant, lavish, outpouring, overflowing Love towards me!
This is the Father Jesus revealed to us in His incarnation! We’ve misunderstood Jesus as our Mediator and we’ve presented Him as one who goes between us and God trying to smooth things over when we mess up. But mediator is mesites in Greek and means an agent of something good! I love that! Jesus was the FULL expression of God’s goodness and came as an Agent of that goodness… revealing to us just how GOOD the Father is towards ALL.
He came and showed us the true nature of the Father as a Good, Good, Daddy… full of chesed (Covenant Love) and goodness toward us…. a love that just won’t let us go!!
In the parable of the prodigal son, both sons had a distorted view of their father – they didn’t see him as GOOD! And therefore, they had a distorted view of themselves making them unable to walk in (to experience) the fullness of their positions as “sons” and enjoy the benefits of a good inheritance… a life surrounded with grace, beauty, love, prosperity and health!
Psalm 34:8 says we are to taste and see that the Lord is good! We are to taste or perceive that He is good, which will then cause us to see or experience His goodness!
The letters in tov is tet-bet which together means preparing something to receive. God is always preparing us to receive more of His goodness. Preparing is setting up or establishing – He is always setting us up to receive, to experience, more and more of His goodness
We can’t exhaust His goodness! He has MORE THAN ENOUGH to go around for ALL!
Psalm 31:19 says that His goodness that He prepared (committed) and stored up (reserved, hoarded!) for us is GREAT (or much, abundant, exceedingly, FULL, multiplied!)
