Is God Good? (Part One)

I’ve met so many people–both Christians and not–who struggle to believe in, connect with, or admire God because it’s hard for them to see Him as ‘good’; so this is post one in a series on God’s goodness.

I want to begin by showing that the Bible testifies that He is good. In later posts I will focus specifically on how we can see God’s goodness within the Bible stories that seem mostly negative (and perhaps this can move into discussion of how God is working in our day-to-day lives). If a specific Bible account has particularly bothered you or a friend in terms of God’s goodness, please comment about it below and perhaps I will address it specifically.

Here is one of my favorite psalms in which David testifies of the Lord’s goodness:

Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts / And I will tell of Your greatness. / They shall eagerly utter the memory of Your abundant goodness / And will shout joyfully of Your righteousness.

The Lord is gracious and merciful; / Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness. / The Lord is good to all, / And His mercies are over all His works. / All Your works shall give thanks to You, O Lord, / And Your godly ones shall bless You. / They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom / And talk of Your power; / To make known to the sons of men Your mighty acts / And the glory of the majesty of Your kingdom. / Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, / And Your dominion endures throughout all generations.

The Lord sustains all who fall / And raises up all who are bowed down. / The eyes of all look to You, / And You give them their food in due time. / You open Your hand / And satisfy the desire of every living thing.

The Lord is righteous in all His ways / And kind in all His deeds. / The Lord is near to all who call upon Him. / To all who call upon Him in truth. / He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; / He will also hear their cry and will save them. / The Lord keeps all who love Him. / But all the wicked He will destroy. / My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, / And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever. (Psalm 145:6-21)

I love David’s account here of God’s character. If God is who David says He is, than He’s not just good but abundantly good in a way we can physically remember! He’s not just righteous, but righteous in a way that will cause us to shout for joy if we truly experience it! He is enough to satisfy every living thing, near to all who call on Him in truth, and protecting all who love Him. Perhaps what catches me the most is that He is “good to all”, which means that even as He is destroying the wicked He is good! This can be a bit mind-boggling, so is worth breaking down. We will spend many more posts on this (though perhaps not consecutively–especially as I am currently out-of-state visiting family). 🙂

Have you noticed the changes in the church?

Some of you may have heard about or noticed a transition in the church–a “new breed” of Christians that are arising (especially out of the pentecostal type churches). Well, there are actually two transitions: some of the church is beginning to adopt New Age doctrine (the emergent church), others of the church are moving into a greater move of the Holy Spirit (we’ll need this outpouring in order to fight the spiritual battle at hand; Acts 2:17-21).

The two transitions seem alike without prudent discernment of the spirits. Many in the fundamentalist churches are confused or mad about the changes. The high percentage of Christians throughout the denominations, I think, haven’t even noticed.

I want to make it clear that the Lord freed me FROM New Age thinking. As a result, I recognize it seeping into the church more clearly than most, and I’m not about to fall back into that movement. That said, God has power (much more power than the enemy!) and He wants to work through His people as a demonstration of His glory. I’m sure I’ll discuss both sides in more detail in the future.

What the church needs is to be fully opened to the Holy Spirit, and fully closed to the multiple deceptive spirits.

Fortunately we know that when we ask God the Father to reveal Himself to us that we may know and love Him more, He will not give us deceptive spirits but His Holy Spirit in abundance (Mat 7:11, Luke 11:13). As long as we’re plugged into the right God, we’ll have the right Spirit. If you love the Lord, there is no reason to fear what He has for you–He loves you too!

On the other hand, some personalities are so good at being open to new things, that they willingly trust and want whatever friends, family, pastors, etc advertise as being excellent ways to connect to God. When it comes to spiritual matters, we should never trust anything but the Word of God (Psalm 146:3, Jer 9:4-6, Mic 7:5, Acts 17:11, Prov 3:5). There are already many false prophets in the world, so it’s very necessary that we test every spirit to know whether or not it’s from God (1 John 4:1-6 and 2 Cor 11:3-4, 13-15).

Review of Real Church: Does it Exist? Can I find it? by Larry Crabb

I don’t recommend Real Church, although the title certainly caught my attention. While Crabb asks very relevant questions with interesting discussion and surprising vulnerability, his vision of the ideal church misses the mark. Despite all the struggling variations of churches, it seems he wants to create yet another one–a better model, perhaps, but still another man-made plan of action.

What it comes down to for me is that church isn’t ‘working’ because the Presence of God (the Holy Spirit) isn’t truly invited. We’ve reduced Jesus and His gospel to what is humanly possible. It isn’t possible for us to walk the way Jesus commissioned us to walk–that’s why we need Him to lead the church. We’ve got to give up our control, stop complaining things aren’t right, and start giving our hearts to the Lord that we may know Him, hear Him and follow Him.

I admire Crabb’s honesty and his fervor to want a desire for the things of God, but his writing doesn’t reflect the leading of the Spirit. Crabb has excellent insights into many of the church’s problems, he just doesn’t connect that the full invitation of the Holy Spirit is the bridge to us walking as Christ intended.

Ignorance and Responsibility

I work occasionally as a parking enforcement officer–a job I started to get myself through college, and have enjoyed so much I probably will never fully quit.

As I write parking tickets, I’ve often encountered angry people and have had to share with them what they’ve done, while still executing justice. I’ve heard every excuse, and one time was nearly killed by a man who had parked over an hour in a 30 minute parking zone and, in rage, attempted to run me over with his truck before the police got involved.

One of the most common excuses is not knowing the rules of the road: “I didn’t know that wasn’t a parking space.”, “I didn’t know I needed a permit in that area.”, “No one told me I couldn’t drive through the bus center.”, and so forth. Some of the people I meet are really nice people who really didn’t know they were in the wrong; more of them are lying (evidenced by the computerized system I carry of every ticket and warning they’ve had in the past). Regardless, it’s the responsibility of those who drive to know the rules of the road (and of parking). It’s my responsibility as parking enforcement officer to judge rightly and execute judgment according to the law.

I say this because many Christians neglect to actively pursue the Lord–even though it’s clear that love (demonstrated through obedience) is the first and foremost commandment. We don’t, in the new covenant, have a rule book to follow as the Jews did; instead, the Holy Spirit writes the law on our hearts and connects us to God so that we can know and walk out His will. Without the pursuit of God through the Holy Spirit (by reading the Bible, dialoguing with the Lord in prayer, connecting with other Christians in fellowship,…) we miss knowing Him. And if we don’t know Him, well, He’ll still have to execute perfect judgment.

The season of God’s mercy is NOW. Right now we’re alive and have the choice whether to learn God’s heart and choose His ways, or whether to drive our lives by our own rules. And while I can give ‘warnings’ to those parked in the wrong spot (the gift of surprise mercy), God’s mercy is only available until we die, after that His judgment can be nothing but Just because He can’t go back on His word.

Holy Spirit Conference, ICLV

Ben and I returned last night from six days in Las Vegas for the Holy Spirit Conference at the International Church of Las Vegas (ICLV). We had an excellent time. Hundreds of people received physical healing from the Lord.

Although there were many great messages, my favorite speaker was Heidi Baker. Her and her husband, Rolland, are missionaries in Mozambique and have experienced the supernatural side of God’s love and provision in amazing ways. They’ve seen food multiplied, deaf ears opened, the dead raised, the sick healed, and countless other miracles. But more impressively, Heidi carries the Holy Spirit so strongly that He is heard in her words and physically seen in her countenance.

As Heidi spoke, one theme keep coming up: how much do we want to know Him? How much do we want His presence?

“The hungry always get fed”, she said, “how hungry are we?” (Isaiah 55)

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is literally the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:10-16 tells us that just as we have a spirit in us that knows the depths of our thoughts, so does God have a Spirit that knows the depths of His being–and that’s the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the same Spirit that resides in God the Father and Jesus themselves. He’s the third person in the trinity God.

Since the Holy Spirit is the inner Spirit of God Himself, He knows all things. This more than qualifies Him to be the Spirit of truth, the Helper, who Jesus promises will teach us all things (John 14:17 & 26) and guide us into all truth (John 16:13).

This is really exciting! And it means that when we ask for more of the Holy Spirit, what we’re getting is the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16)! Even recognizing only the surface level issues of our flesh, we know that the mind of Christ is something we need much more of; we should be diligently pursuing the Holy Spirit so that we can closely partner and connect with God in the way He intended.

Evidence of Repentance

In 2 Corinthians 7:11, Paul tells the church of Corinth what repentance looks like. True repentance is evidenced by:

earnestness (diligence)
vindication (some versions say, ‘clearing of ourselves’)
indignation (we begin to hate the sin; it becomes disgusting to us)
fear of the Lord (reverence to the point of trembling before Him)
longing (intense desire)
zeal (we pursue, embrace, and defend Him with enthusiasm)
avenging of wrong (we move from tolerating our own sin to punishing it; we force sin to depart from us by submitting to God)

When we begin demonstrating these attitudes, we show ourselves to be innocent in the matter–true repentance (repentance means ‘a change of mind’) has taken place.

Remember when God the Father instructs Moses about how the Jewish people should sacrifice to the Lord? Exodus 29:10-30, amongst other places, shows that there was to be a “sin offering”, “burnt offering”, “wave offering”, and “heave offering” (other passages even include “guilt offering”).

Let’s not cut repentance short by stopping after ‘sin offering’; let’s continue to offer a fragrant aroma of prayer to the Lord and to continue fighting against our flesh until everything in competition with the Lord is purged from us.

It’s not enough for us to JUST confess our sins and receive forgiveness–this is a good start, but Christianity is more about seeing and knowing Jesus than simply being forgiven. That is, a Christian can be forgiven and ‘saved’, and yet not be walking in the freedom Christ intended. The freedom occurs when we let godly sorrow move us to full submission and a renewed mind. As we experience this full repentence, we also begin to experience the Lord Himself because the cloudiness of sin clears itself from us enough that we can begin to see our Lord.

Moving without the Spirit?

A friend of mine started going to a new church and invited me to check it out with her. It was a pretty charismatic church: passionate speaking, dancing, and singing. The atmosphere was intimate, warm, and intense. I mostly enjoyed myself.

There was one problem: I personally had a really hard time connecting with the Holy Spirit. And I began to realize that just because the people were moving and singing and loudly proclaiming blessings over themselves, didn’t mean that the Holy Spirit Himself was moving through them.

This isn’t to say that it wasn’t a good church (maybe I was having an off day?) or to criticize any type of worship (we have so many personalities and each connect to the Lord best in our own ways). It is important to remember though that when the Holy Spirit moves it happens in the hearts of the people first and overflows in various personalities, so loudness and physical movement aren’t necessarily an indication of His presence.

Camping in Yosemite

I spent the last four days in Yosemite National Park camping with some friends from college. The views and weather were fabulous, and it was exciting to see all the tourists with their various languages and cultures (in fact, we made many new friends).

I had so much fun with the women, but also missed my husband by the time I returned. When I came back and told Ben I missed him, he said, “Sometimes you have to miss me to remember you love me, otherwise you might take me for granted.”

Sometimes we have to miss the one we love in order for that love to be stirred. I know there have been seasons in my relationship with the Lord where He’s seemed harder to reach, and yet it’s been in those moments that my heart’s cried out with deeper fervor to hear His voice and know Him more.

Jesus IS the Word; the Bible is His transcript.

The Bible is the key to the heart of God. There’s power in it, because it’s the testimony of the true God, and He Himself speaks in and through it (literally). It’s a powerful thing to capture the words of the Lord–and this is just what the Bible has done. It’s the transcript of dialogs with God throughout history.

A friend asked me once whether we can trust the Bible since the translations vary slightly from language to language and version to version. She, being linguistic minded, felt it wrong to credit God for potential human errors–and how can we say that each are the inspired Word of God when they aren’t exactly the same?

All good questions. But here’s the thing: it is the HOLY SPIRIT who reveals the Word to us (John 14 & 16).

Well, wait! What about the Bible? Yes, it starts with the Bible. Our lives should revolve around the Bible because it IS the inspired Word of God–it’s His transcript to us. But Jesus is the Word that became flesh (John 1). The Holy Spirit is the spirit of God Himself, and it’s the Holy Spirit speaking through the Bible that makes the Word come alive for us (1 Cor 2)! In essense, it’s the Bible plus the Holy Spirit–the Bible is the living Word only when read with the Holy Spirit’s divine guidance. So, it’s all about the Bible (which is Jesus, the Word, as a lingual transcription for us); and it’s all about Jesus, who is the Word Himself and still speaks through His Spirit!

Awaiting the King

The Personal Blog of Theresa C. Shell