The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Good"
Gather the finest hearts and minds of human history, give them 1,000 years to contemplate, consider together, and formulate an answer. Then watch them fall to their knees in utter failure to more than begin to offer findings regarding what might appear to be as simple a statement as exists in the pages of the Bible…
"The Lord is good" (Psalm 100:5).
Infinite goodness comprises the being and nature of the living and true God of Scripture. Regardless of how wondrous we discover our Lord to be in His Word and our personal experience of Him, an endless voyage into the glory of His heart awaits us. Perfect unselfishness forms His being and guides His every word and action. "Charity (love)… seeketh not her own" (I Corinthians 13:4; 5). Whether in the bestowal of grace or the administration of judgment, God acts in perfect altruism and devotion to others. He cannot be or do otherwise as the darkness of egoism has no place in the glory of who He is.
The Lord Jesus Christ, of course, most revealed the nature of the triune God during His earthly lifetime.
"He that sent Me is with Me: the Father hath not left Me alone; for I do always those things that please Him" (John 8:29).
"The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but minister and give His life a ransom for many" (John 20:28).
The Lord Jesus did all He did devotion to His Father and to us, overcoming every temptation to selfishness He experienced during a lifetime of devilish and worldly challenge (Hebrews 4:15). In so doing, He revealed the guiding motivation of otherness in God. "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). The beauty of such a life graces the pages of Scripture to reveal the eternal glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in their devotion to one another, which now manifests in the love of God for us.
"Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world… And I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:24; 26).
Of all that we can know about God, nothing more sanctifies us. "Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Corinthians 3:18). Our Lord defined the essence of His glory when Moses asked to see it. "I will make all My goodness pass before thee" He answered (Exodus 33:19; emphasis added). Wondrously, the glory of such sublime wonder now not only passes before believers, but dwells within us. "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5). Thereby, we find the goodness of our Lord in the most unlikely venue of all, as the Apostle Paul testified, "It pleased God… to reveal His Son in me" (Galatians 1:15-16). How good is God? We will never fully know. However, that He dwells within us to reveal His goodness, made possible through the most sorrowful of all sacrifices, surely tells us that our journey of discovery into His glory - His goodness - will never end.
A final thought. I do not remember it often enough, but sometimes when I pray, a thought occurs to me. "I am communicating with a Being of such infinite goodness that no selfish thought has ever found a place in His heart or mind." Upon every such consideration, I pause and think, "How can I even utter a word to such a One?" But then I remember that God in His goodness beckons me to do so. The prayers that follow are never as they would have been apart from the remembrance of so simple a statement - the Lord is good - which bears a wonder so glorious that we will never more than begin to know its infinite measure.
"Oh, how great is Thy goodness!"
(Psalm 31:19)
Weekly Memory Verse
I hate vain thoughts, but Thy law do I love.
(Psalm 119:113)
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