October 30, 2021 -- Psalm 34:8 -- God the Good

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
   Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Psalm 34:8 ESV

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
I Peter 2:3 ESV

Who is God? What is He like? By the word of His prophet, the Living God says let the one who boasts boast in this that they know Me (Jeremiah 9:24). To be a Christian is more than praying a prayer and then going on with your life as if nothing had changed. To be a Christian means that your whole is reoriented, you have made a 180 degree turn away from wickedness toward craving more of God and desiring to grow up in salvation. The attributes of God, the Scripture-descriptions of Who God Is, teach us to know God as He truly Is. He has revealed Himself.

We live in a world of hyperbole and excesses. My bank teller, at the end of a mundane transaction, will suddenly get over-animated and gush, “Have an excellent day”. I feel like she is being sarcastic. Who can sustain that? I can’t.

The LORD of Heaven and earth is good. That is Who He Is, and how He acts toward to His creation.

He is good in giving light and life.

He is good in revealing Himself perfectly.

He is good, the very definition of all good forever, past, present, and future. In every instance of eternity He is good.

He is good in giving Jesus Christ for the complete forgiveness of all our sins and through Whom we have relationship with God, the Eternal One

He is good in giving the Holy Spirit, Who lives in us. It is the Spirit of God Who helps retrain our tastes so that we no longer crave the world and its tawdry pleasures, but our hearts rejoice in the goodness of God.

He is good in all His ways. Whatever God does, has done, or ever will do, is marked with goodness. He is Supreme Good.

Psalm 1 invites us to meditate on the LORD and on His Word. This is what believers do. We spend time thinking about Who God is, how He has revealed Himself to us. He invites us to know Him. As we know Him, inevitably we will worship Him.

My God,
Thou hast helped me to see,
that whatever good be in honour and
rejoicing, how good is he who gives them,
and can withdraw them;
that blessedness does not lie so much
in receiving good from and in thee,
but in holding forth thy glory and virtue;
that it is an amazing thing to see Deity
in a creature, speaking, acting, filling, shining through it;
that nothing is good but thee,
that I am near good when I am near thee,
that to be like thee is a glorious thing:
This is my magnet, my attraction.

Thou art all my good in times of peace,
my only support in days of trouble,
my one sufficiency when life shall end.
Help me to see how good thy will is in all,
and even when it crosses mine
teach me to be pleased with it.
Grant me to feel thee in fire, and food and
every providence,
and to see that thy many gifts and creatures
are but thy hands and fingers
taking hold of me.
Thou bottomless fountain of all good,
I give myself to thee out of love,
for all I have or own is thine,
my goods, family, church, self,
to do with as thou wilt,
to honour thyself by me, and by all mine.
If it be consistent with thy eternal counsels,
the purpose of thy grace,
and the great ends of thy glory,
then bestow upon me
the blessings of thy comforts;
If not, let me resign myself to
thy wiser determinations.
"The All-Good". The Valley of Vision: Puritan Prayers and Devotions, ed. Arthur Bennett. Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2020. page 10.

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