God’s Account from the beginning over ALL that He had made for His sons (ALL mankind) was IT IS GOOD! And then after He had made mankind in His image and likeness, blessed them, and gave them dominion over ALL that the works of His hands, He looked around at this FINISHED, GOOD environment that He placed man in and said ALL was VERY GOOD!
In Hebrew the word good is tov. And this 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… this was the environment God created for us to live in. There was no sin, 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.
We were created very good and surrounded with grace, beauty, love, health, and prosperity!
In the Old Testament the word tov is listed 562 times and Strong’s Concordance defines it as favorable, pleasant, festive (I love 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 agathosand 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 LOVE that!
Truly, life is good because God is good! He didn’t design our lives to be any other way!
1 Chronicles 16:34 says, O give thanks to the Lord, for He is GOOD. The word good in this verse is called an absolute noun, meaning it follows another noun forming a single idea. In other words, good is not an attribute of God. GOOD and GOD are one single thought. Meaning that there is no good apart from God and then associated with Him. GOOD and GOD are the same thing…. GOOD is who He is. And because Good is His nature, 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!
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. Although, celebrates over you with shouts of joy doesn’t quite capture the Hebrew meaning of this verse. It would read better as — He passionately spins and dances, shouting and singing over you with joy because He is overcome with you!
Psalm 91:15 in the Message Bible says, He will rescue us and then throw us a party! Reading that through a Christological and FINISHED lens, we read He rescued us and threw us a party! And that party hasn’t stopped on God’s side… life is a continual celebration Because Jesus rescued us (ALL mankind) from sin, death, sickness, disease, poverty, etc… and restored us to God’s original design of VERY GOOD!!
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 that 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 in Greek is mesites 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 it impossible to experience who they were as sons and enjoy the benefits of their good inheritance… a life surrounded with grace, beauty, love, prosperity and health!
Psalm 34:8 says that 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 in every part of our lives!
The Hebrew 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 means 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 to us) and stored up (reserved, hoarded for us!) is GREAT… it is much more, abundant, exceedingly, FULL, multiplied to us!
Believe it, expect it, and experience His goodness toward you, and in you, today!
~ Robin
