Series: The Word
Romans 3:23 ESV
Romans 3:21-24 The Message
Psalm 23:6 ESV
Psalm 23:6 The Message
This past week I discovered that good is a difficult word to write about.
I’ve been praying about this lesson for days and asking God to help me to write it. I asked God to show me someone who is good or who displays goodness.
That could be someone from scripture or someone in life.
I didn’t come up with anything except a question…who IS good? In Roman’s 3:23 Paul wrote, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
In Romans 3:21-24 from The Message we are told, “But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.”
All have sinned. No one is truly good except God.
Yet the psalmist wrote in Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
When we read about the life and escapades of King David we come to realize he really was not a good man.
Even though he knew Bathsheba was married he took her into his bed chamber and after she sent word that she was with child…his child. Since her husband had not been with her during that time because he was off serving in the army, David tried to get him to go home to be with his wife Bathsheba so he could cover up his sin. Bathsheba’s husband refused because he was a devoted soldier. So, David had Bathsheba’s husband sent to the front line of battle so he would be killed.
Then he took his Bathsheba for his wife.
Now, David had many wives. But he took another man’s wife and then had him killed.
David was not a good man.
Yet when he wrote Psalm 23 he says goodness and mercy will follow him all the days of his life.
I first memorized Psalm 23 before I was a teenager. I’d heard it recited at every funeral for all of my great-grandparents.
That Psalm meant a lot to me because I knew all but two of my great-grandparents. At their funerals I saw my grandparents suffer one by one as they lost their parents.
I’d heard the 23rd Psalm so many times that memorizing it was easy.
Thinking about God’s goodness and mercy that follows us comforted me.
So, when we think about David who we know was not a good man by his own merit, we realize that David knew even though he was not a man of exemplary character and he had not been a good man, goodness and mercy would follow him.
David knew God’s goodness and God’s mercy would always follow him. He knew even though he had failed miserably, God would not fail him.
David knew God loved him and would always love him no matter what.
Psalm 23:6 in the Message says, “Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life.I’m back home in the house of God for the rest of my life.”
That shines a whole new light on God’s goodness and mercy.
The Hebrew word is ט֤וֹב (To-wb) meaning good.
God is good and the beauty and love of God chase after us every day.
We are at home with God. All the days God chases after us with his beautiful goodness and love every day in every way.
God desires us. God longs to hear from us. God doesn’t care if we complain because God desires our honesty. God simply wants us to spend time sitting with…
I’ve come to realize that while I do take requests to God, what I really need is to sit in silence with God. I need to sit with God.
That’s because when we sit in silence with God, God fills us with beauty and goodness. God’s love spills over on us.
I think that’s what David learned. Even though he was a man who had made really bad choices, God loved him and poured out the goodness of God on him.
When David opened his heart to receive God’s goodness he knew he could receive it all the days of his life throughout eternity.
Spiritual Practice: Goodness
Sit in silence with God. Receive goodness and love.
In God, Deborah
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