FATHER'S GOODNESS TO OBEDIENT CHILDREN!

God in His person is full of qualities and characteristics which are perfect in themselves. At the same time, His characteristics are perfect in His relationship with His people also. He can thus be looked at from both these perspectives. In His absolute nature and existence, God does all things perfectly to reveal Himself. In His relationships, He reveals Himself perfectly and does all things which express His characters and qualities. God is the provider of all the goodness that man needs and is illustrated as a sun which provides all that the solar system needs to survive and perpetuate. God is a shield for all which He sustains through the laws which He has established in His creation. Both of these are true about God’s works and person in His relation with His children for whom He provides everything. He works as a shield against all perils they are in. All favours and honors for man have come from Him. He has created man in His own image and provided man with the privilege to know God and to keep a relationship with God on the basis of the spiritual laws He has established. He favours those whom He wants to favor according to His sovereign will. He has established honors to all He wants to honor with special gifts, abilities and desires for His kingdom’s sake. Even though there are natural abilities which He bestows in creation, He also gives special gifts and talents to those of His household to serve Him and His people. He gives good gifts to all His children. He gives them priceless treasures from His treasure house. These treasures like His peace, love, grace and mercy which money cannot buy are given freely to His children so as to enrich their lives and make them treasure houses to be spread around. But He expects His children to live in unbroken communion and fellowship with Him in order that these treasures will flow to them and through them. They need to live a blameless life and follow a repentant attitude towards sin and the world so that they will continue to live in fellowship with Him.

Dear friend, do you realize that God in His characteristics and qualities is a giving God? He gives immeasurably to His children. He gives them liberally and in abundance so that they will have no shortage for all His goodness in their lives. He wants their lives to be full of the richness of His great qualities in such a way that they can use it all in their own practical lives as a living testimony for His name sake. God is full of goodness and He wants to make His goodness flow to His children all the time. If His goodness has to flow to them, they need to keep the channel open. The only way the channel is kept open is to keep the relationship going without broken fellowship. Sins of commission or omission break our relationship and fellowship with Him. So we are admonished by the Psalmist to keep ourselves blameless before Him so that His goodness will flow towards us and to others through us. In order for His resources to flow to us all the time, we need to live a continuous life of repentance and contrition of heart for all the sins that we commit against God. When we violate any principle given by God, His Spirit who indwells us will remind us about it and put loving pressure on us to go to Him to confess and get ourselves washes white as clean. And the Lord expects us to obey His Spirit and go into a time of repentance so that the hindrance to our fellowship with the Lord will be removed. Thus the goodness of God will flow to us once again. As we enjoy God’s goodness, He expects us to live a life of gratitude and praise to His name. He expects us to live a life which recognizes that all good things flow to us from God because of His grace and not because of our merits of any kind. He also reassures us today that He will not withhold any good things to His beloved children if we walk in communion with Him.

Romans 8:28 – And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.

Thought for Today
As our loving Father, God will not withhold any good thing from us, but will expect us to live in continuous fellowship with Him and be His obedient children.