Switzerland is the world’s leading chocolate consumer, where the average person enjoys more than 22 pounds every year. Austria and Ireland are next on the list. Americans consume a paltry eleven pounds per person on average, but that still accounts for over 3 billion pounds of chocolate annually.
Chocolate is a symbol of love, a token of life’s little pleasures, and an appropriate metaphor for God’s rich bounty and goodness.
“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good,” cries David in Psalm 34:8. And Psalm 103:5 says God satisfies our mouths with good things. His goodness is worthy of our worship, for the Bible instructs us: “Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good…it is good to sing praises to our God” (Psalm 135:3 and 147:1).
In its truest sense, the word good means more than honorable, worthy, or beneficial. It refers to the moral excellence and glorious purity of God himself. As Psalm 100 famously says: “For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.” Echoing this theme, Jesus told the rich young ruler, “No one is good but One, that is, God” (Luke 18:19).
One of the most telling incidents about this is in Exodus 33. Moses longed to see the Lord face-to-face and prayed, “Please, show me Your glory.” And God said: “I will make all My goodness pass before you.” The word “goodness” served as a synonym for the glory and greatness of Jehovah’s presence.
The word good was even coined from the word God, meaning something that comes from God. Goodness is the transcendent quality of God, and things on earth and in heaven are “good” only as they correspond to that standard.
When God created the universe, He saw that all He had made was very good (Genesis 1:31). But evil entered into the story. The Bible declares that apart from the Lord Jesus, there is none who does good, no, not one (Romans 3:12). In our flesh there dwells no good thing (Romans 7:18).
Jeremiah declared, “Your iniquities have turned these things away, and your sins have withheld good from you” (Jeremiah 5:25).
But when Jesus was born, the heavens rang with good tidings of great joy (Luke 2:10). The Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ; and when we are in Him, we are heirs to His goodness.
“Good” is a constant descriptive of God’s blessings and benefits to us. It’s easy to skip over Bible verses that are inserted into text, but please take a moment to read these Scriptures aloud. Notice the preponderance of the terms good and goodness:
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights. The Lord will indeed give what is good. All things work together for good to those who love God. Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You! Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you.
Yes, I have a good inheritance. I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait on the Lord; be of good courage. Be of good cheer. Be of good comfort. No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
Well, another verse affirms the same truth. Psalm 34:10 says: “Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” If we’ll look, we can find tokens of His goodness in the simple pleasures of every day — a golden rosebud, a baby’s smile, a card in the mail, a hymn on the radio, or a cup of hot chocolate. These are rich blessings, and it is good to sing His praises for every one of them, great or small.
How good is the God we adore!###
Dr. Jeremiah is the founder and host of Turning Point for God and senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California. For more information on Turning Point, go to www.DavidJeremiah.org.
