Goodness of God

The goodness of God rests on nothing but Himself. It doesn’t rest on our circumstances or the outcome of our day-to-day, in which God is our pal when it’s a good day and mean on the bad ones. Our day-to-day is not our God and therefore can’t express goodness—only He can.

The goodness of God rests in his innate nature.

Before we took our first breath, before we decided to define what is good and bad, his breath released life into the air. He even looked at us and said, “It is good.” How is that so? Because we are the image of Him, and He is the only truly good thing.
How does one come to grips with this? How does one see God as the only goodness there is and see themselves in that light? We need his glory and his grace.

The glory of God is like staring into the depths of the sun with each beam threatening to blind more than before. Light rushes in and the mind can’t comprehend what the eyes have seen. We shut our eyes as a natural defense because darkness lends itself as less harmful than something we can’t comprehend or control. If the mind isn’t prepared, then the sun can be portrayed as a violent and blistering force.

The grace of God is the moment when, while we have felt cold for so long and darkness has welcomed itself inside so many times it no longer knocks to enter our door and occupy our couch, we are met with the revelation that we don’t need to hide in a coat that barely fits and a home with artificial heat.

Glory asks us to reverently open the door; grace helps us keep the door open.

We need warmth from the sun. We need the right view of it. We need to see that the glory of God and the grace of God are no strangers to one another. We need to see the light from the sun that reveals the dark and the warm embrace that occupies the same space. We need refinement and we need a hand to hold while it happens.

We must stop caring more about the story than the one the story is about. We cannot continue to function as though worship is dictated by the footnotes of our week to determine if it has matched this story of grace and goodness. Lord, may we step into a language of worship that embraces your spirit and truth. Prepare our minds for what we will see when we turn our gaze to you. That as you blaze like a fire, refining all parts of our being, you cannot burn us because grace and glory meet where you and I meet.

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