What Makes God So GOOD?

I am astonished how many churchgoing people SAY that God is GOOD and SING about how GOOD God is on Sundays but yet live lives devoid of God's influence and direction. I would venture to say that God probably doesn't even cross their minds all that often. But if God is so GOOD then why wouldn't people abandon everything to pursue Him with their lives? Why wouldn't people seek his perfect design for life and then embrace it? I am convinced it's because people don't really believe that God is GOOD or at least worthy of their time, talents and treasures. Most of these people probably grew up being trained to SAY the right things and KNOW the right things but when push came to shove their lives ended up reflecting what they truly believe-God isn't all that extravagant (at least He's not as extravagant as fancy cars and any gadget made by Apple). Let's be honest, many people say that God exists but live like he doesn't (I call these people practical atheists); they claim that material stuff won't fill that void in their hearts and make them happy but they live like material things will satisfy their souls (I call these people practical humanists). Is this you?

I am convinced that God is GOOD and the life that God designed is GOOD and worthy of my time, talents, and treasures. But what makes God's way of doing life so GOOD? For that matter what makes GOOD GOOD? If we can't answer this question then we will live like practical humanists because that's just what comes naturally-that's probably why it's called HUMANism. Well fortunately God didn't determine what was good and what was bad by flipping a coin. There is actually a certain logic to GOOD. Can you explain this logic?

In the creation account given in Genesis, there is this phrase that it repeated 7 times: "God saw that it was good." God also performed 10 creative acts as indicated by the phrase "God said" (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 29; 2:18). Now the interesting thing is that the numbers 7 and 10 indicate completion and perfection throughout the Bible. And so I think it is pretty obvious what God is trying to communicate to us..."My original design for life on this earth is really GOOD so for crying out loud live by it." And if we look at God's original design for life the word that best describes it is "restful." I think that this is why God was able to rest on the seventh day-Everything was functioning harmoniously. The man and woman got along peacefully and felt no shame. The streams never ran out of water to nourish the trees so they could grow and produce the food necessary to sustain life. And 'death' was not an experience that anyone had to endure. Complete restfulness existed on the earth and God saw that life was good.

But to better understand what GOOD is, maybe we should also look at what makes something bad. In Romans 2:26, Paul labels homosexual relations as bad because they are 'unnatural' or more literally 'against nature' (i.e. against God's natural design for life). What makes something 'against nature'? Well think about if everyone on this earth were homosexual, what would happen? We would go extinct and not be able to be fruitful and multiply as God originally designed. And so homosexuality seems to deviate from God's original design for life. What about murder, violent anger, jealousy, or greed? Imagine if these things described every person on this earth all the time (not just every now and then). What would our world be like? It would be a mess don't you think? But then imagine if everyone were loving, giving, patient, kind, gentle, self-controlled all the time. Our world would be pretty amazing wouldn't it? Well, this is the logic that defines whether things are good or bad. God designed this world to function in peace and harmony and so he labeled those things that would promote this design as 'good' and he labeled those things that would ruin this design as 'bad'.

Now here's where the church (or Christ-followers) fit in. The church (in part) exists to be a community that shows people what God's original design for this world is supposed to look like. The result should be that the church community (as it reflects the person, character, values, and priorities of Jesus) is so irresistible that it draws people back to God. In short, the church exists to be an unstoppable force in this world that is constantly overcoming evil with GOOD and drawing people back to God and his GOOD design for life. But this won't happen if churchgoers don't find God all that worthy of their time, talent, and treasures. How valuable is God to you?