Our Greatest Good (part 3)

Meditation on Psalm 16:2b

Continued

"I will say to the Lord... 'apart from you I have no good thing.'"

3) God is our greatest Good because he is good towards us, especially to those who are his children.    

In just a smattering of Psalms we see that God is good towards those who fear, follow and take refuge in him: “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:6). “How abundant are the good things that you have stored up for those who fear you, that you bestow in the sight of all, on those who take refuge in you” (31:19). “The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing” (34:10).  “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (84:11).  “The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest” (85:12). 

Even in the New Testament we read that God is the Giver of good things: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17).

There are three truths of God’s goodness towards us that are scattered throughout the New Testament.

a) The first truth is that God gives good things to those who ask for them.  In Matthew 7:7-11 Jesus instructs his disciples to continue to ask, seek and knock in prayer.  An answer will come for those who continue to do so.  Then as the master teacher, he draws an illustration from everyday life: If little Johnny came up to you as a parent, rubbed his tummy and said, “Could I have a slice of jelly bread?”  Would you give him a rock as a cruel joke?  No!  Of course you wouldn’t!  Or if he sat at the dinner table and asked, “Could you pass me some fish?”  Would you throw a poisonous snake at him? No! Of course you wouldn’t!  Jesus draws his own conclusion: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

In the Magician’s Nephew, one of the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, Digory and Polly are sent on a quest to find a treasured fruit from a sacred tree in the middle of a garden.  They take flight on a winged horse and land in a valley mid evening.  While the horse, Fledge, munches on grass, the two children wonder what to eat and the following conversation takes place: 

“Well, I do think someone might have arranged about our meals,” said Digory.

“I’m sure Aslan would have, if you’d asked him,” said Fledge.

“Wouldn’t he know without being asked?” said Polly

“I’ve no doubt he would,” said the Horse… “But I’ve sort of idea he likes to be asked.”

Have I?  Have we forgotten to ask our Father in heaven for good?  Perhaps we think amiss.  Perhaps you have grown up with a father or mother who was always busy and never had time to listen, really listen to your requests.  You then think, “God is too busy with galaxies and nebulae to listen to my pitiful request.”  Or perhaps you have grown up with parents who ignored you or criticized you for a good request and think God is like that.

Child of God!  Have you not caught what Jesus said?  “How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”  Perhaps we need to look at God through a different lens: God delights in giving good gifts to his children.  He waits and waits for his children to approach him and ask for strength to endure, food for the table, understanding in his word, wisdom to train your children in his ways and the list goes on. 

But some of us will say, “I have asked him for good things and he hasn’t answered.”  Or has he?  Could it be that God has refused a certain request of yours now only to give you something better later on or to have you wait for it so that you appreciate the true value of it?  Or could it be that God has our eternal good in mind when he answers differently then we think? 

Our Father in heaven knows what is best when we ask for what is good.

b) The second truth is that God completes the ‘good work’ that he began in us.  Paul wrote to the Philippians that he was ‘confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 1:6).  God begins things and he ends things in his time.  On August 17, 1982 he began his good work in me.  He gave my mother wisdom to answer a simple question about the origin of dinosaurs and then shared the gospel with me.  On that sunny afternoon God opened my heart to believe in Jesus.  His good work began in me. 

Every corporate church and every individual who loves and follows Jesus Christ is a ‘good work’ of God.  He began this good work in them.  He molds it in them, breaks things up and builds things up or weeds evil things out and plants good desires in us so that his good work becomes very good.  He is the Potter and we are the clay (c.f. Isaiah 64:8; Jeremiah 18:6); he is the Craftsman and we are his workmanship; he is the Artist and we are his masterpiece.  The potter carves and molds deep crevices in the clay to make it something beautiful.  The craftsman chisels rough edges to make it smooth.  The artist blends colors on the canvas to create a variety of shades that all reflect his desires.  So it is with God.  He began a good work in us and is molding us, shaping us and weaving together colors in our lives so that on the day of Christ Jesus his good work will be completed in us.  This process is sometimes painful on our part but the end result and reward will be greater then what we can possibly imagine.

And we can rest assured that he will finish this work in us.  He is not like a potter who throws the lump of clay back into the bin and leaves his profession.  He is not like the craftsman who becomes bored with his painting.  No!  He is ever working in us.  He will never give up on us until that work is completed in Christ Jesus!

c) This leads to the third truth of God’s goodness towards us: he has the power to create good despite our circumstances.  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).  In all things—accidents, heartbreaks, a cruel boss, a long day, hospital visits, cancer and the list goes on—God weaves it together for our good and his glory.  In the midst of painful trials and circumstances I am hard pressed to believe this verse.  I cannot always see the immediate good that comes from heartbreak or having a cruel boss or whatever else might trouble me.  But God takes it and begins to work something so beautiful and so good in our lives that when he finally brings it about, in this life or the next, the good outcome will be greater than the trials and evils that befall us.  And we will wonder in that day how we ever doubted God’s goodness towards us!  God’s intentions towards his children are always good and he works towards that end.  Thus we can say with King David “I am still confident of this: that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13).

Once when I worked at a childcare center, a little girl came to me and said, “Look at what so and so did.”  When I looked at her little notebook that served as her diary of sorts I saw where another student wrote: “You are stupid” or something like that.  While I did talk to the other child about this, the girl was still sad that this was in her diary.  It was in pen and she could not erase it.  It was now part of her diary, her life and written in ink.  Then God gave me a bright idea.  I took another pen and began to shade in some letters and put a circle on the ‘t’ and put pedals on it.  Then I did something with the other letters so that it was a small picture of a sunshine and flower.  It was not something ugly but something beautiful that the little girl appreciated.  In a much, much more greater way God does this with all the sicknesses, trials, difficulties, evils, heartaches, sin and whatever else that comes in our lives.  He takes it and makes a rose blossom from ashes.

Never doubt God’s goodness towards us.  He is our greatest Good!  He is good, he is the ultimate standard for good in our lives and he is good towards us!

Apart from our Lord, we have no good thing.  Our greatest good is God himself.  Ponder his goodness to you, even in the midst of trials.  Think of his goodness when you pass by flowers and forests.  Thank him for his goodness towards you always.

"I will say to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.'"

God is good and he is our greatest Good!

Our Greatest Good (part 2)

Meditation on Psalm 16:2b

Continued

"I will say to the LORD..."apart from you I have no good thing."

2) God is our greatest Good because he is the ultimate standard for what is good and thus approves or disapproves what is good and what is not. We see this in his approval of creation.  Each day when he made something, ‘God saw that it was good.’  The light, stars, mountains, trees, rivers, lions, sheep, cats and dogs were all good.  Then he created humans in his own image and likeness. At the end of his work, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). 

Then a great sorrow entered the world when our first parents disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit.  Sin entered the human race, corrupted us and as a result God cursed the earth.  Sin is the anti-good agent in us so that ‘there is no one who does good’ (Psalm 14:1) and even our own righteousness becomes nothing more then a filthy rag (Isaiah 64:6). In fact it robs us of the good God intends for us (c.f. Jeremiah 5:25; 18:10).    

But God is still good to us.  He gave us the Law, which is God’s standard of goodness for us.  The author of Psalm 119:39 tells God: “Your laws are good.” These laws include the Ten Commandments along with the other ones found in the Bible.  While many people wince when they hear the word ‘rule’ or ‘law,’ God gave them for our good.  There is a question posed to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 10:12-13 that points to the reason why God gave his commands: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all you soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own GOOD.”

Even though the Lord’s commands are good and given for our good, they are so good that it draws out even the slightest sin in our lives.  Paul describes it in Romans 7 this way:

“So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.  Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means!  Nevertheless, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.” 

When Paul finally concludes God’s commands are good and that in his own strength he cannot measure up to them, he declares: “What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Jesus Christ is our greatest good.  For while Jesus hung on the cross for six torturous hours, the love and compassion of God towards sinners and the justice and wrath of God against sinners met and provided a way for us sinners to be rescued.  And the power of God raised Jesus from the dead the third day so that we might believe he is our greatest good!  This is good news for us!  Very good news indeed!    

Our Greatest Good (part 1)

Meditation on Psalm 16:2b

"I will say to the LORD..."apart from you I have no good thing."

As I grew up, my parents taught me a simple prayer to say before our meals: “God is good, God is great and we thank you for our food. Amen.”  It was a child’s prayer to express thanks for our bountiful meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans or whatever else we might have.  We prayed and then ate, perhaps not realizing the true hidden bounty in the prayer that God IS good and our meal was only a fraction of his goodness to us.

In the first part of this verse, David declares God as his Lord or Master.  His attitude about God as his Master is not one of an embittered, remorseful, regretful, spiteful or hateful attitude that only obeys him because he must.  Quite the contrary! David declares to God, “Apart from you I have no good thing” or “I have no good apart from you.”  It is very profound.  In other words, God is not only the Giver of all good things (c.f. James 1:17) but he is our greatest Good.  There is no higher good than God in our lives.

The Lord is good and the Source of all good things.  But what does it mean that God is good and that he is our greatest Good? 

1) God is our greatest good because he is good.  His character, the essence of his Being is good and not evil.  Therefore he is not some monster bent to destroy people on a maniacal whim or some Roman pagan god with a twisted view of pleasure.  No!  Instead, he is good. 

What does this look like in God’s character?  In Exodus 33 Moses asks the Lord, “Show me your glory” or to rephrase it, “Show me what makes you so great!” The Lord replies, “I will cause all my GOODNESS to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.” 

In Exodus 34 the Lord passed in front of Moses and proclaimed his name:

“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.  Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and forth generation.” 

This is God’s goodness.  It is wrapped up and woven together with his grace, compassion, patience, love, faithfulness, forgiveness and justice.  All of these character attributes flow from the ‘all my goodness’ God told about that passed in front of Moses.

We see all of these at work throughout the Bible.  God’s goodness shines through his compassion in Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.”  The Lord sends his rain to water the crops of the good and the evil people so that they will grow and produce food for them.  He provides jobs, shelter, food and clothes for both because of his compassion (c.f. Matthew 5:45; Acts 14:17).  His patience shines through as he waits for the wicked to repent (2 Peter 3:9).  

Out of his goodness he forgives and instructs wrongdoers in his ways (Psalm 25:7-8), he satisfies his creation with good things (Psalm 104:28) and becomes a refuge and caretaker for those in trouble (Nahum 1:7). 

In Psalm 136 the author praises God: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.  His love endures forever.”  The rest of the Psalm declares God’s goodness and enduring love through his acts of creation, the deliverance from an oppressive government and the conquest and judgment on wicked nations (God’s justice). 

God is good!       

The Lord our Master

Meditation on Psalm 16:2a

“I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord.’”

The author of this Psalm, David, declares that God is his Lord or his Master. 

The closest parallel we have in our society of the words ‘Lord’ or ‘master’ and ‘servant’ is ‘employer’ and ‘employee.’  The employer hires an employee based on her skills, aptitude and experience.  She will work for an agreed wage.  If she is a good employee, she will most likely earn a raise or a promotion.   If she is not, she may face discipline or termination. 

Though similar in some ways, the relationship between ‘master’ and ‘servant’ was different in the ancient days.  A master or lord owned the servant or slave.  The servant was the master’s property.  A good master would provide for his servant’s basic needs of food, shelter and protection.  We get a glimpse of this in Psalm 123:2, which says, “As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a female slave look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God till he shows us mercy.”  This verse pictures the eyes of slaves seeking out their master to receive something from his hands. 

Yet the master fully expects the servant will obey him, work and perform his designated tasks.  We are not exempt as servants of the Lord.  Of this we have numerous examples in the New Testament: Jesus likens his return to servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet.  Those he finds watching are blessed (Luke 12:35-40).  In the parable of the talents, the master entrusted his servants with wealth and expected them to put it to work (Matthew 25:14-30).  Jesus our Lord asks us, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).  Paul instructs the slaves in Ephesus to ‘serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people’ (Ephesians 6:7) and those in Colossae to ‘work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters…It is the Lord Christ you are serving’ (Colossians 4:23-24).  Peter instructs his readers to ‘set apart Christ as Lord in your hearts’ (1 Peter 3:15).

God as our Lord, our Master, will provide for all of our needs.  However, we have a duty turned delight to serve, obey and love him.  This leads to a second and very beautiful truth that the rest of the verse declares.  But this will be the topic of another 'raindrop' in a few days... 

A Prayer of Protection

Meditation on Psalm 16:1

“Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.”

Before a child goes out to play tag or another sport, I have often seen the little boy or girl hand something to his parents.  Perhaps it might be a bracelet, a necklace, a toy or even a cell phone.  The child does not want to risk losing the delightful item and asks the parent to watch it for him or her.  The child has full confidence that the parent will keep this item safe from harm.  This is at the root of David’s prayer; only he is asking God to keep him safe, not an item.

The word ‘keep…safe’ has the strong nuance of guarding something or paying close and careful attention to something.  Thus the parent in the above illustration guards her child’s special item and often says, “Don’t worry, I’ll watch it for you.” 

In ancient days the word often conveyed a serious and somber side.  When a commander entrusted a prisoner one of his soldiers, he would often say, “Your life for his life.”  In other words, if the prisoner escapes, you die.  This puts the soldier on high alert.  He carefully observes the prisoner to make sure he isn’t loosening his bonds in someway.  He guards him with the utmost perception so that he doesn’t lose his own life. 

It is the constant care, the careful watch and the perceptive protection David, the author of the Psalm, asks God for.  “Keep me safe, my God.”  Carefully watch over my life and protect me.  What does he ask protection from?  The passage does not say.  It could be his enemies, wicked men, betrayers, sickness or plagues or any number of things.  He doesn’t mention it.  He only asks God to keep him safe.

The reason for this is the second clause of the prayer: “for in you I take refuge.”

I remember a time as a child when my sisters and I were playing out near the barn.  As we played dark clouds gathered, a storm was coming.  We did not pay attention to the sky until a low rumble of thunder shook the earth.  We looked at each other and then bolted to our house.  Our house was a refuge from the storm and all things frightening.  It was a shelter from the rainstorms in the spring, the thunderstorms during summer and fall and the blizzards and cold in the dead of winter.  It was a ‘safe place’ away from the mean teachers at school that would burden us with homework, the bullies and the long days at school.  My home was my refuge when I grew up.

In a far greater way, God is our refuge.  He is a shelter from the storms of life whether they are angry bosses, gossiping friends, slander, sicknesses, heartbreaks, loneliness, depression and the list goes on.  The Lord as our refuge does not necessarily take the storm, enemy or troubling circumstance away from us but he does offer protection, security and solace in the midst of it.

When I seek him as my refuge, whether I realize it or not, I acknowledge that God is secure but I am vulnerable; God is strong but I am weak; God is all-sufficient but I am the one who lacks.  It also demonstrates our reliance upon him.  A rabbit runs for shelter under a brush pile because it knows it cannot defeat a red tail hawk.  In the same way, we must learn to fly to God when troubles assail us, circumstances overwhelm us, enemies are all around us or sickness overtakes us. 

Go to God first.  Seek him.  He is our refuge.  He is our shelter.  He is the one who will keep us safe.    

Thankfulness

Thankful

“I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds” (Psalm 9:1).

As I recently read this verse on a train ride, the phrase ‘with all my heart’ captured my attention.  It pierced the depths of my heart with a simple but profound question: What am I thankful for with all my heart?

When people say ‘thank you’ either to God or people, sometimes it is out of obligation, something routine and thus even edging near the shallow end.  I have experienced this in my own prayers.  Sometimes, I will begin, “Father, thank you for this day…” without a thought.  The questions, 'what am I thankful for about this day?' or 'Why am I thankful for this day?' never cross my mind.  It is merely something I tack on to my prayer because I learned to do it that way.  Or perhaps the more probable is that at one time I was truly thankful for the day but then just made it a routine to thank him for it. 

But giving thanks must go deeper.  The nuance of the word ‘thanks’ in this verse is ‘to confess’ or ‘to acknowledge’, usually publicly. This makes sense when I say ‘thank you’ to a person for such and such a gift, deed or service. I acknowledge that this person went out of his or her way to give me a part of his or her heart.  It is similar with God.  When I say, “Thank you God for such and such” I confess and acknowledge that God gave or revealed something about his heart to me. 

The second part of this verse helps me to understand how to give thanks ‘with all my heart.’  “I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.” Perhaps the best way to stir up gratitude in a cold heart is to begin to recount God’s wonderful deeds, both what he has done as revealed through the Bible or what he has done in your own personal life.

I still remember working a night shift at a grocery store during school.  I did not want to be there and confess that I had a negative attitude about the whole matter.  Then a foreign thought came into my mind: “I’ll try to come up with a hundred things to thank God for.”  So as I worked, I began to recount God’s wonderful deeds and things I was grateful for.

It started with the simple things I knew: the day, my eyesight, my ears to hear, my hands to work and touch, the ability to work, my family, my friends, the chance to study (I was going through school at the time), things I was learning, my workplace and onto the greater works of God such as his forgiveness, his righteousness given to me, his adoption of me into his family and so on.  After each of these I asked the question: “Well, what about the day am I thankful for?” or “Why am I thankful for my parents?” or “What about God’s forgiveness am I thankful for?”  This helped me to go deeper in my thanks and gratitude to God. Somewhere around numbers 30-40 my whole outlook on things changed.  Being thankful kindled a warm fire in my cold, stubborn hard-heart that would glow and warm others by its fire. 

I later wrote (whether this was the incident that inspired this quote or not I’m not sure), “A heartfelt ‘thanks’ to God heats our cold prayers, saturates our dry ones and turns sour complaints into sweet praise.”

Don’t settle for shallowness in your thankfulness.  Dig deep in your thankfulness.  Be specific not shallow.  Recount his deeds not your worries.  Be thankful and don’t complain. 

My desire is to say as David said long ago:

“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.”