May 20th, 2020 – Morning Devotion With Pastor Dan
As I write this devotion the thought goes through my mind of how “Good” our God is. I’m sure you know this already, but sometimes it’s just an overwhelming feeling one might get when we are thinking about our Lord. It certainly is a wonderful thing to ponder when everything in the world seems to be falling apart all around us. Anyway, the Lord is a “Good” God.
(Psalm 145:8-9)…..The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, And His tender mercies are over all His works.
How many people don’t realize that there is a God who is gracious and full of compassion, who also is slow to anger and great in mercy towards them. So many people today don’t realize that the God of all creation wants them to realize His love and compassion He has for them. But the greatest deception of the world, the flesh, and the devil is making people think God is bad. God is not guilty — of anything bad!
All three of these entities want us to believe God is bad: that He is unloving, unmerciful, and uncaring, and that He keeps us from enjoying anything good. But it isn’t true. God loves you more than you can imagine. The devil is a liar, the world is wicked, and you can’t trust your flesh in any way. Because of so many efforts, by so many, to distort the truth, many people’s idea of God is actually what the world, the flesh, and the devil is like.
(Psalm 34:8)…..Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
We must, as Scripture admonishes, taste and see that the Lord is good. Unless you have a relationship with God, you won’t know how good He is.
(1 John 4:8)…..He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God is a God of love, compassion, mercy, grace, long-suffering, etc. He desires that those who He has created would know Him this way.
God’s goodness and mercy have been manifested toward all men in the giving of Jesus to die for the sins of mankind (Romans 5:8) (John 3:16-17). James declared in his epistle:
(James 1:17)…..“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow turning.”
Paul in his epistle to the Roman believer’s:
(Romans 2:4)…..“Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”
On the other hand, God is also a just God, exacting severity upon all those who disobey Him. Both the Old and New Testaments are replete with examples of God punishing the disobedient. Adam and Eve brought suffering and death to the human family through their sin (Genesis 2:16-17) (Genesis 3:1-2). God also drove them from the Garden of Eden and from the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24). The Lord placed a curse on Cain for murdering his brother Abel (Genesis 4:9-15). The people of Noah’s day were destroyed by a flood because of their corruption and sin (Genesis 6:5-7). Nadab and Abihu, priests of God and sons of Aaron, were consumed with fire because they dared to offer God strange fire (Leviticus 10:1-3) (Leviticus 6:8-13). The Lord even scattered Israel from off the land of Canaan because of their sins (Leviticus 26:33) (Nehemiah 1:8).
Yes, God is the God of love, goodness, mercy and grace, but He is also the God of justice and severity. Every sin not covered by the blood of His Son must be dealt with and justice must be exacted. Let us place our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, and experience the love He has for us.