The Importance of a Good God

God doesn't look at what is right and then try to do it. Righteousness is not something God’s attempting; it's something he is. Out of his sovereignty, he exists as a righteous being. He's not trying to be powerful; he is power. He doesn’t simply have a massive wealth of facts and insights; he is knowledge. Proverbs speaks of this: God doesn’t just have wise thoughts; he is wisdom.

Why does this matter? Why should we care if God either does good things or is all that is good? It matters because if God is all that is good rather than simply doing good, then we can’t have anything that is good without God.

If there's love on earth, it's because God is love. He's demonstrating that through his grace. There's grace on earth because of him. There's justice on earth because God is just. What’s more, if God is not in heaven, all the attributes of him — joy, love, peace, righteousness, wisdom, justice — are not in heaven either. Take God away, and both heaven and earth become hell.

Jonathan Edwards said in a sermon, “The main reason why the godly man has his heart thus to heaven is because God is there; that is the palace of the Most High. It is the place where God is gloriously present, where his love is gloriously manifested, where the godly may be with him... If God and Christ were not in heaven, he would not be so earnest in seeking it, nor would he take so much pains in a laborious travel through this wilderness, nor would the consideration that he is going to heaven when he dies, be such a comfort to him under toils and afflictions.”

The Bible says that if we acknowledge this truth that we have nothing good apart from God, he will “…make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11, ESV).

No matter what we’re going through in life, we have the comfort of knowing that God is good, and that goodness will never waver. That’s good news in both the easy times and the rougher periods of life.