If God Is A Good God And Only Gives Good Things, Why Does Job Say, Shall We Receive Only Good From God And Not Evil?
Question: The following excerpt I have read in a devotional reading which made me think, here it is, with a title'The Good and the bad! Take it from the hand of God!!'. Further the devotional reading continues saying the following, "But he said unto her, what? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this Job did not sin with his lips (Job 2:10).
As my son Mark became extremely sick in the past week and did not recover instantly despite all of my unceasing prayers, I thought is God hearing me or my faith is less??
But at that time the Spirit of God reminded me of Job whose suffering was far more greater than mine. Job's sons and daughters were killed, what a grief!
God did not instantly heal Job or change things overnight, but it took time. Lots of time. But Job kept on BELIEVING in God's integrity and one day God turned everything for him!
In this time I learnt how to wait on God when the miracle doesn't come soon, how to worship God when the situation instead of getting better becomes worse.
Today my son is on his road to recovery by God's great healing power but the way to His healing is a journey a little longer than expected. My friend if you are going through a tough situation, DO NOT grumble and do not give up on God.
RECEIVE the good and the bad from God knowing He's always in control. His rewards are greater than His ordeals and tests!
PRAYER: God help me to go through this situation, I know you will make a way for me. In Jesus name Amen."
How relevant it is to say that God gives good as well as the bad?
God is a good God! He gives only good things. Not bad things added with good things, then why this article says like this?
Answer: Greetings to you in Jesus wonderful name!
Job as a man of God was very prayerful and a holy man who had been testified proudly by the Lord of heaven and earth to Satan saying, "Have you noticed My servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil." (Job 1:8, NLT). Can you ever imagine God pointing to one man on earth and speaking greatly about him? Job the man of God was blameless and upright in the sight of God, the man who fear God and shuns evil, but that does not mean that Job was sinless and without any fault. Only one man was sinless as a human born of a woman and that one person is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. He was born without sin, nature, He lived without sin and did not sin when He was tempted, and thus died without sin for the sin of the whole world of people to save them from sin and death (1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5; 2 Cor 5:21; Rom 8:3). In other words, Jesus was "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin", after the Jesus took our sins upon Himself to carry it to the Cross for us all which includes Job in it (Hebrews 4:15). In fact, Job was very self righteous along with all the good character he had, even though Job used his great power and wealth to help the disadvantaged—the poor, the fatherless and the widows and even used his great influence to destroy pagan forms of worship, Job's perfection was based on his faith which made him righteous before God, and that is how God saw his life through the foretold blood of Jesus which was shed for him from the foundation of the world (Rom 4:5; Rev 13:8; 1 Peter 1:18-20; Eph 1:4).
The problem was, Job knew he was righteous—and this made him horribly self-righteous (Job 32:1). This sin is the most difficult sin there is to see. Though Job was “perfect and upright” in how he observed the strict letter of God’s law, he was neglecting the spirit of the law. He was with vanity and pride on the inside of his heart. A person can be perfect according to the Law, yet the internal victory in their heart which is the production center of all sins get cleaned up only when a person receives a broken spirit of humility after falling in to trials and temptations that break their hard heart internally and makes way for the Lord to restore a heart of flesh through it all (Psa 51:6, 10, 12). Job was sacrificing all kinds of sacrifice in his life for the Lord which He did not actually desire, but the Lord was expecting the sacrifices of a broken and a humble heart from Job (Psa 51:16-17).
Because of this, God allowed him to endure a horrendous period of trial and test so he could clearly see himself in relation to God! God told Satan he could destroy all of Job’s wealth—even his children—but couldn’t touch Job himself (verses 6-12). God actually used Satan to chasten Job for his self-righteousness. On the surface, Job maintained a right attitude and knew exactly what to say (verses 20-22), but this only added to his deep-seated problem.
God then allowed Satan to lash out at Job personally, striking him with sore boils from head to toe (Job 2). While Job’s sin still didn’t show itself outwardly, on the inside Job just couldn’t understand why he, of all people, would be tried and tested with such severity.
At this point of time, just like the Devil tested Adam through Eve who was the closest flesh of his flesh, she suggested Job to curse God and die (Job 2:9). To this Job replied saying, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips."
At first when Job says "Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?", it seems as though Job was having lack of knowledge in declaring such a bold statement to his wife who was accusing Job and his Lord of bringing bad things to him. I have seen some very good preachers and teachers of the Word of God in modern times make a error in propagating that Job was speaking with lack of knowledge. Of course Job did not know fully that Satan was the one who was causing the evil that has happened to him, but we see through the above Scripture that at the end God through the writer of the Book of Job who has been inspired to write on behalf of God saying, "In all this Job did not sin with his lips", God testified that Job's preceding statement made regarding God saying, "Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?", was not at all wrong but in fact right because Job was appealing to the sovereign hand of God as the one that decides whether a test or a trial can come in to the life of God's children and his servants who fear Him and shun evil.
In other words, Job was not looking and scrutinizing of who did the evil, but rather who allowed that evil to happen, and we know that was God was the one who allowed it to happen for the overall eternal good, promotion and blessing in Job's spiritual life in regard to eternity, the same type of trials and temptations God allows for many good believers even today to break them and make them humble for their overall eternal good, and for them to conform themselves to the image and character of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 8:28-30).
God in fact claims about his sovereign hand saying, "I make light and create darkness. I make blessings and create disasters. I, the LORD, do all these things." (Isa 45:7, GWT). What does it really mean? It means God is saying, all things that happen in heaven or on earth, not even a bird can fall to the ground without My permission and foreknowledge (Matt 10:29). In other words, Satan is a rebellious servant who does God's bidding without even realizing that his evil work through influencing people with his lies and deceiving them is working out the good purpose of God to be fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven because of God's foreknowledge of the present as well as the future (Matt 6:10; Isa 46:9-10; 48:3-5; Psa 76:10). Satan is like a roaring leashed lion, who can only go as far as the Lord permits him to go and destroy things as the destroyer (Job 1:12; 2:6; 1 Peter 5:8; Isa 54:16).
So knowing these truth of the Word of God will give us healthy faith to know the faithfulness of God and depend on God to rescue us out of all trouble. The Word of God declares that, "The righteous person faces many troubles, but the LORD comes to the rescue each time." (Psa 34:19, NLT). O what a blessed assurance!
The Lord tries the righteous — God may think fit to try the fidelity of him whom he knows to be upright, by many adversities, that he may afterward give him the more illustrious testimonies of his approbation and love, as well as that he may thereby correct the remaining imperfections of his character, may purge away his dross, and more thoroughly refine him for his Master’s use (2 Tim 2:19-22; Psalm 66:10; Zechariah 13:9; Jam 1:12; 1 Peter 4:12), therefore the trial of the righteous results in God's approval over them which brings a special favor of God over their lives and families, and for the wicked God's hatred is revealed through the test that comes to them, unless they repent and turn to God to receive His mercies and grace to get saved from sin and death (Psa 11:5; Acts 3:19). In short, God proves and approves the righteous: He proves and rejects the wicked.
Knowing these truth should make us embrace trials given to us by the Lord, because we know for sure that it is for our eternal good, and that the Lord will surely deliver us out of it all at the end of it, and will reward us with double blessing for all the hardships we have gone through in our lives (Job 42:10, 12). God deals with our self and makes us to take our eyes of our self through the trials we go through in God's will, and then through it all trains us to look to supply others need first by focusing on the goodness of God and His mercies, then receive blessings upon blessings without even asking for it or looking to receive it. Here is what the apostle James says regarding the theme we have been discussing, "10 My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. 11 Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful." (James 5:10-11). From the verses seen above we come to understand that the end intended by the Lord is always eternally good, though it might seem bad, dangerous and earthly disastrous the way He might lead us to make us trust Him to help us inherit the eternally blessed things that God has planned for us to inherit. Trusting God through the dangers of life, and still declaring God as the Good God even when we do not feel it bodily and emotionally and in all other areas of earthly life, is the life of faith that we learn on earth to store our treasures in heaven for eternity (Heb 11:13-16; Matt 6:19-21; Luke 16:19-31).
Is God a good God? What does the Bible has to say?
The inspired Scripture reveals, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." (James 1:17). In other words it clearly says, that God is a good God and only good things come out of God, and every thing that He gives to anyone in this world is a perfect gift that will only bless them as it comes from the Father of lights in heaven, who never changes or varies or speaks one thing and does another thing based on a timeline of possibility like a human. What is impossible with men is only possible with God, and therefore God is a good God who never changes his character and he is the only constant we can depend on in this entire universe.
But Satan and the demons with him are revealed to hold the Character of a evil tyrant who is sadistic and comes to do nothing but, "steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10). Satan and his demons hate humans and therefore accuses them of sin constantly before God (Rev 12:4, 9-10). Satan want to make people be misled by his lies and want to paint a picture of a angry and a unjust God who always twists justice the way He wants (John 8:44). People who believe Satan end up losing the privilege of having a relationship with a loving God who is just and righteous in all His ways (Psa 145:17; 18:30; Prov 21:3).
God is a good God! He gives only good things. Not bad things added with good things, as the Bible says, "The LORD's blessing enriches, He adds no trouble to it, neither shall affliction be joined to them." (Prov 10:22, Paraphrased). God does not add trouble to his children, but as a God of justice and righteousness, He always might allow a trial when Satan asks for someone because they have something of his sinful desire as a seed within them, so that he might sift them as wheat and they will be cleansed through the trial, but God then turns all the trouble Satan gives to them to become a blessing to them eternally instead (John 14:30; Luke 22:31; Jam 1:13-15; Gen 50:20). O what a good God our Lord is!
The Bible says, "The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made." (Psa 145:9, NIV). Without any doubt the Lord is good and has compassion on all he has made, that is why, He "makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). In other words, none of us think how much of a cost we need to pay up to God, if God were to supply the sunshine and the oxygen we breathe at a cost to use it? A oxygen cylinder at the hospital costs so much of a price to pay, just to let the patient continue to breathe and exist, is it not? If God were to charge us for the water we use freely from the bore-well and wells and rivers, how much of a cost we need to pay up to God, have you ever thought of it? Without the above essentials humans would die and cease to exist on this earth, i.e. without clean air, water and sunlight. Only when we consider all these things, we can come to know that God is compassionate on all of us whom he has made, and that is why He gives us sustenance and the right environment to live and exist on earth without any special price paid to Him.
People without thankfulness will not think about the above things we have discussed, and they take for granted whatever God gives, and then when the provision and going gets tough through some famine or disaster they blame God for not being good or they become a atheist, to take the God equation out of their lives and also mislead others around them, and go in to practicing sins of uncleanness which are perverse in the sight of God, which comes to them as wages of sin which is the warped thinking for being unthankful and not giving glory to God (Rom 1:18-24).
Most of the time because the God of heaven and earth, is the God of love and compassion, and at the same time, the God of justice, along with providing sustenance and good environment for humans living on earth, God also executes His judgment on earth to resist sin and establish righteousness, and to declare His justice in all the earth. His mercy and grace are not in spite of His justice, but because of it. We come to know through Scripture that, "the LORD of Armies will be honored when he judges. The holy God will show himself to be holy when he does what is right." (Isa 5:16, GWT).
Sin embodies everything contrary to God’s holy nature and is offensive to Him and therefore is a crime against God and also humanity, and justice demands a penalty of death and separation from Him for it (Romans 1:18-32; 2:5; 3:23). But God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to pay that penalty for us (Romans 5:8-11; 6:23) and made salvation available to all who believe in His name (John 1:12; 3:15-17; 20:31). Is he not a good God? The God who has given his only begotten Son to save humanity, will be not give all the provisions of this temporal life for humanity which is drowning in sin and death? By all means God is able to provide all things needed for humans and will provide without fail till the present heaven and earth exist, because it is He who created it for purpose, and that purpose is to know Him before every human will leave the earth so that they can live in heaven with Him instead of hell for their sin (Rom 8:32; Isa 45:18; Acts 17:26-27).
Does God twist justice? Does the Almighty twist what is right (Job 8:3)?
Truly, God will not do wrong. The Almighty will not twist justice (Job 34:12). If He does one sin by twisting justice, God will cease to be the holy God He is, and so He even cannot lie or fail to keep His promises (Tit 1:2). God is a holy and perfect God (Matt 5:48; 1 Peter 1:16).
The Scripture reveals, that when it goes well with the righteous the city rejoices, when the wicked perish, there is jubilation (Prov 11:10). Remember, righteousness exalts a nation which walks in it, sin is a reproach and a shame to any people (Prov 14:34). Having been made in His image (Genesis 1:26-27), we humans long for moral justice to prevail upon the earth and are outraged when we see injustice happening around us. Why do we seek justice for crimes? It’s in our DNA. That is why we see that God's eye which are in every place keeps a watch on the evil and the good, and sees that justice is done, and each day He takes revenge and condemns the wicked people (Prov 15:3; Psa 7:11). Divine wrath is God’s righteous anger and punishment, provoked by sin.
So God does not do any wrong, he has never done injustice to even a single person in the whole world until now. So I come to the conclusion that bad things can be allowed by God to fulfill the righteousness of God and His Divine justice, but the instrument who does these evil through instigating sin in humans who give him space to operate is Satan, and He is the one who does all the evil things that happen in all the world, but draw to people a wrong picture of God to confuse their mind to be in unbelief toward God. Those evil things, disasters and calamity caused by wicked people through the influence of Satan and his demons should not be confused with the Divine justice that God fulfills through his decree and foreknowledge, so that even Satan and his demons become a part of the discussion with God to fulfill His righteousness and justice on earth as we see in the Book of Job and also in few other areas of the Bible (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-10; 1 Kings 22:20-23). The Lord knows that Satan and his demons are acting unlawfully on earth and keep instigating evil in the heart of humans, but still the Lord has allowed them by respecting the free will of humans to choose the right and reject the evil as a test for the promotion of their lives for now, which will have a eternal repercussion of treasures that will be added to those on the Lord's side which will stay with them as they continue to be the overcomers through faith for eternity ahead.
The fact that Job was facing bad things from the hand of God, is a partly right and partly wrong. The right thing about Job's statement is, in a allowing sense God allows the good and the bad in the life of a believer, and turns it all at the end in to something eternally good for the benefit of the person, this is a fact that happened in the life of Job (Rom 8:28). And God found nothing wrong in the statement made by Job because in reality, Job never knew the talk that went in the heavenlies between God and Satan. Thus the statement made by God through the Scripture, "In all this Job did not sin with his lips", proves the innocence of Job as a man of God who trusted the sovereign hand of God and His goodness in spite of not knowing, what has happened in the heavenlies. The reason for the ordeal of his life is for God to make Job a eternal excellence and a blessing to multitudes including us who get inspired when we hear the valor of this great man of faith and his victory at the end of it all (Isa 60:15).
Thus the devotional write up that brings some important points like, how Job kept on BELIEVING in God's integrity and one day God turned everything for him is a lesson for all believers to learn (Jam 5:11)!
We too as believers can use the time of suffering through trials to learn to wait on God when the miracle doesn't come soon, and also learn how to worship God when the situation instead of getting better becomes worse. The other lesson we can learn is when going through a tough situation WE SHOULD NOT grumble and give up on God, because the rewards are out of this world if we could patiently wait by faith through developing long-suffering and endurance (Heb 10:35-36). Let us as believers RECEIVE the good and the bad from God knowing He's always in sovereign control over our lives, and nothing apart from His permission can happen in our lives. Remember to walk in faith through the trials because at the end of it all, His rewards are greater than His ordeals and tests which will stay with us for now and for eternity ahead!
PRAYER: Dear God help me to go through all tough situations which presently exists in my life according to your will, in spite of me praying and asking You to take it away from me. I know Satan will soon be crushed under my feet soon because of the grace that you are going to give me (Rom 16:20), and you will make a way for me to be victorious through the present ordeal, and through it all will reward me now and for eternity at the end of it all. So I praise you and thank you, in Jesus mighty name Amen."
Much Blessings....
As my son Mark became extremely sick in the past week and did not recover instantly despite all of my unceasing prayers, I thought is God hearing me or my faith is less??
But at that time the Spirit of God reminded me of Job whose suffering was far more greater than mine. Job's sons and daughters were killed, what a grief!
God did not instantly heal Job or change things overnight, but it took time. Lots of time. But Job kept on BELIEVING in God's integrity and one day God turned everything for him!
In this time I learnt how to wait on God when the miracle doesn't come soon, how to worship God when the situation instead of getting better becomes worse.
Today my son is on his road to recovery by God's great healing power but the way to His healing is a journey a little longer than expected. My friend if you are going through a tough situation, DO NOT grumble and do not give up on God.
RECEIVE the good and the bad from God knowing He's always in control. His rewards are greater than His ordeals and tests!
PRAYER: God help me to go through this situation, I know you will make a way for me. In Jesus name Amen."
How relevant it is to say that God gives good as well as the bad?
God is a good God! He gives only good things. Not bad things added with good things, then why this article says like this?
Answer: Greetings to you in Jesus wonderful name!
Job as a man of God was very prayerful and a holy man who had been testified proudly by the Lord of heaven and earth to Satan saying, "Have you noticed My servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil." (Job 1:8, NLT). Can you ever imagine God pointing to one man on earth and speaking greatly about him? Job the man of God was blameless and upright in the sight of God, the man who fear God and shuns evil, but that does not mean that Job was sinless and without any fault. Only one man was sinless as a human born of a woman and that one person is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. He was born without sin, nature, He lived without sin and did not sin when He was tempted, and thus died without sin for the sin of the whole world of people to save them from sin and death (1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5; 2 Cor 5:21; Rom 8:3). In other words, Jesus was "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin", after the Jesus took our sins upon Himself to carry it to the Cross for us all which includes Job in it (Hebrews 4:15). In fact, Job was very self righteous along with all the good character he had, even though Job used his great power and wealth to help the disadvantaged—the poor, the fatherless and the widows and even used his great influence to destroy pagan forms of worship, Job's perfection was based on his faith which made him righteous before God, and that is how God saw his life through the foretold blood of Jesus which was shed for him from the foundation of the world (Rom 4:5; Rev 13:8; 1 Peter 1:18-20; Eph 1:4).
The problem was, Job knew he was righteous—and this made him horribly self-righteous (Job 32:1). This sin is the most difficult sin there is to see. Though Job was “perfect and upright” in how he observed the strict letter of God’s law, he was neglecting the spirit of the law. He was with vanity and pride on the inside of his heart. A person can be perfect according to the Law, yet the internal victory in their heart which is the production center of all sins get cleaned up only when a person receives a broken spirit of humility after falling in to trials and temptations that break their hard heart internally and makes way for the Lord to restore a heart of flesh through it all (Psa 51:6, 10, 12). Job was sacrificing all kinds of sacrifice in his life for the Lord which He did not actually desire, but the Lord was expecting the sacrifices of a broken and a humble heart from Job (Psa 51:16-17).
Because of this, God allowed him to endure a horrendous period of trial and test so he could clearly see himself in relation to God! God told Satan he could destroy all of Job’s wealth—even his children—but couldn’t touch Job himself (verses 6-12). God actually used Satan to chasten Job for his self-righteousness. On the surface, Job maintained a right attitude and knew exactly what to say (verses 20-22), but this only added to his deep-seated problem.
God then allowed Satan to lash out at Job personally, striking him with sore boils from head to toe (Job 2). While Job’s sin still didn’t show itself outwardly, on the inside Job just couldn’t understand why he, of all people, would be tried and tested with such severity.
At this point of time, just like the Devil tested Adam through Eve who was the closest flesh of his flesh, she suggested Job to curse God and die (Job 2:9). To this Job replied saying, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips."
At first when Job says "Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?", it seems as though Job was having lack of knowledge in declaring such a bold statement to his wife who was accusing Job and his Lord of bringing bad things to him. I have seen some very good preachers and teachers of the Word of God in modern times make a error in propagating that Job was speaking with lack of knowledge. Of course Job did not know fully that Satan was the one who was causing the evil that has happened to him, but we see through the above Scripture that at the end God through the writer of the Book of Job who has been inspired to write on behalf of God saying, "In all this Job did not sin with his lips", God testified that Job's preceding statement made regarding God saying, "Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?", was not at all wrong but in fact right because Job was appealing to the sovereign hand of God as the one that decides whether a test or a trial can come in to the life of God's children and his servants who fear Him and shun evil.
In other words, Job was not looking and scrutinizing of who did the evil, but rather who allowed that evil to happen, and we know that was God was the one who allowed it to happen for the overall eternal good, promotion and blessing in Job's spiritual life in regard to eternity, the same type of trials and temptations God allows for many good believers even today to break them and make them humble for their overall eternal good, and for them to conform themselves to the image and character of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 8:28-30).
God in fact claims about his sovereign hand saying, "I make light and create darkness. I make blessings and create disasters. I, the LORD, do all these things." (Isa 45:7, GWT). What does it really mean? It means God is saying, all things that happen in heaven or on earth, not even a bird can fall to the ground without My permission and foreknowledge (Matt 10:29). In other words, Satan is a rebellious servant who does God's bidding without even realizing that his evil work through influencing people with his lies and deceiving them is working out the good purpose of God to be fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven because of God's foreknowledge of the present as well as the future (Matt 6:10; Isa 46:9-10; 48:3-5; Psa 76:10). Satan is like a roaring leashed lion, who can only go as far as the Lord permits him to go and destroy things as the destroyer (Job 1:12; 2:6; 1 Peter 5:8; Isa 54:16).
So knowing these truth of the Word of God will give us healthy faith to know the faithfulness of God and depend on God to rescue us out of all trouble. The Word of God declares that, "The righteous person faces many troubles, but the LORD comes to the rescue each time." (Psa 34:19, NLT). O what a blessed assurance!
The Lord tries the righteous — God may think fit to try the fidelity of him whom he knows to be upright, by many adversities, that he may afterward give him the more illustrious testimonies of his approbation and love, as well as that he may thereby correct the remaining imperfections of his character, may purge away his dross, and more thoroughly refine him for his Master’s use (2 Tim 2:19-22; Psalm 66:10; Zechariah 13:9; Jam 1:12; 1 Peter 4:12), therefore the trial of the righteous results in God's approval over them which brings a special favor of God over their lives and families, and for the wicked God's hatred is revealed through the test that comes to them, unless they repent and turn to God to receive His mercies and grace to get saved from sin and death (Psa 11:5; Acts 3:19). In short, God proves and approves the righteous: He proves and rejects the wicked.
Knowing these truth should make us embrace trials given to us by the Lord, because we know for sure that it is for our eternal good, and that the Lord will surely deliver us out of it all at the end of it, and will reward us with double blessing for all the hardships we have gone through in our lives (Job 42:10, 12). God deals with our self and makes us to take our eyes of our self through the trials we go through in God's will, and then through it all trains us to look to supply others need first by focusing on the goodness of God and His mercies, then receive blessings upon blessings without even asking for it or looking to receive it. Here is what the apostle James says regarding the theme we have been discussing, "10 My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. 11 Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful." (James 5:10-11). From the verses seen above we come to understand that the end intended by the Lord is always eternally good, though it might seem bad, dangerous and earthly disastrous the way He might lead us to make us trust Him to help us inherit the eternally blessed things that God has planned for us to inherit. Trusting God through the dangers of life, and still declaring God as the Good God even when we do not feel it bodily and emotionally and in all other areas of earthly life, is the life of faith that we learn on earth to store our treasures in heaven for eternity (Heb 11:13-16; Matt 6:19-21; Luke 16:19-31).
Is God a good God? What does the Bible has to say?
The inspired Scripture reveals, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." (James 1:17). In other words it clearly says, that God is a good God and only good things come out of God, and every thing that He gives to anyone in this world is a perfect gift that will only bless them as it comes from the Father of lights in heaven, who never changes or varies or speaks one thing and does another thing based on a timeline of possibility like a human. What is impossible with men is only possible with God, and therefore God is a good God who never changes his character and he is the only constant we can depend on in this entire universe.
But Satan and the demons with him are revealed to hold the Character of a evil tyrant who is sadistic and comes to do nothing but, "steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10). Satan and his demons hate humans and therefore accuses them of sin constantly before God (Rev 12:4, 9-10). Satan want to make people be misled by his lies and want to paint a picture of a angry and a unjust God who always twists justice the way He wants (John 8:44). People who believe Satan end up losing the privilege of having a relationship with a loving God who is just and righteous in all His ways (Psa 145:17; 18:30; Prov 21:3).
God is a good God! He gives only good things. Not bad things added with good things, as the Bible says, "The LORD's blessing enriches, He adds no trouble to it, neither shall affliction be joined to them." (Prov 10:22, Paraphrased). God does not add trouble to his children, but as a God of justice and righteousness, He always might allow a trial when Satan asks for someone because they have something of his sinful desire as a seed within them, so that he might sift them as wheat and they will be cleansed through the trial, but God then turns all the trouble Satan gives to them to become a blessing to them eternally instead (John 14:30; Luke 22:31; Jam 1:13-15; Gen 50:20). O what a good God our Lord is!
The Bible says, "The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made." (Psa 145:9, NIV). Without any doubt the Lord is good and has compassion on all he has made, that is why, He "makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). In other words, none of us think how much of a cost we need to pay up to God, if God were to supply the sunshine and the oxygen we breathe at a cost to use it? A oxygen cylinder at the hospital costs so much of a price to pay, just to let the patient continue to breathe and exist, is it not? If God were to charge us for the water we use freely from the bore-well and wells and rivers, how much of a cost we need to pay up to God, have you ever thought of it? Without the above essentials humans would die and cease to exist on this earth, i.e. without clean air, water and sunlight. Only when we consider all these things, we can come to know that God is compassionate on all of us whom he has made, and that is why He gives us sustenance and the right environment to live and exist on earth without any special price paid to Him.
People without thankfulness will not think about the above things we have discussed, and they take for granted whatever God gives, and then when the provision and going gets tough through some famine or disaster they blame God for not being good or they become a atheist, to take the God equation out of their lives and also mislead others around them, and go in to practicing sins of uncleanness which are perverse in the sight of God, which comes to them as wages of sin which is the warped thinking for being unthankful and not giving glory to God (Rom 1:18-24).
Most of the time because the God of heaven and earth, is the God of love and compassion, and at the same time, the God of justice, along with providing sustenance and good environment for humans living on earth, God also executes His judgment on earth to resist sin and establish righteousness, and to declare His justice in all the earth. His mercy and grace are not in spite of His justice, but because of it. We come to know through Scripture that, "the LORD of Armies will be honored when he judges. The holy God will show himself to be holy when he does what is right." (Isa 5:16, GWT).
Sin embodies everything contrary to God’s holy nature and is offensive to Him and therefore is a crime against God and also humanity, and justice demands a penalty of death and separation from Him for it (Romans 1:18-32; 2:5; 3:23). But God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to pay that penalty for us (Romans 5:8-11; 6:23) and made salvation available to all who believe in His name (John 1:12; 3:15-17; 20:31). Is he not a good God? The God who has given his only begotten Son to save humanity, will be not give all the provisions of this temporal life for humanity which is drowning in sin and death? By all means God is able to provide all things needed for humans and will provide without fail till the present heaven and earth exist, because it is He who created it for purpose, and that purpose is to know Him before every human will leave the earth so that they can live in heaven with Him instead of hell for their sin (Rom 8:32; Isa 45:18; Acts 17:26-27).
Does God twist justice? Does the Almighty twist what is right (Job 8:3)?
Truly, God will not do wrong. The Almighty will not twist justice (Job 34:12). If He does one sin by twisting justice, God will cease to be the holy God He is, and so He even cannot lie or fail to keep His promises (Tit 1:2). God is a holy and perfect God (Matt 5:48; 1 Peter 1:16).
The Scripture reveals, that when it goes well with the righteous the city rejoices, when the wicked perish, there is jubilation (Prov 11:10). Remember, righteousness exalts a nation which walks in it, sin is a reproach and a shame to any people (Prov 14:34). Having been made in His image (Genesis 1:26-27), we humans long for moral justice to prevail upon the earth and are outraged when we see injustice happening around us. Why do we seek justice for crimes? It’s in our DNA. That is why we see that God's eye which are in every place keeps a watch on the evil and the good, and sees that justice is done, and each day He takes revenge and condemns the wicked people (Prov 15:3; Psa 7:11). Divine wrath is God’s righteous anger and punishment, provoked by sin.
So God does not do any wrong, he has never done injustice to even a single person in the whole world until now. So I come to the conclusion that bad things can be allowed by God to fulfill the righteousness of God and His Divine justice, but the instrument who does these evil through instigating sin in humans who give him space to operate is Satan, and He is the one who does all the evil things that happen in all the world, but draw to people a wrong picture of God to confuse their mind to be in unbelief toward God. Those evil things, disasters and calamity caused by wicked people through the influence of Satan and his demons should not be confused with the Divine justice that God fulfills through his decree and foreknowledge, so that even Satan and his demons become a part of the discussion with God to fulfill His righteousness and justice on earth as we see in the Book of Job and also in few other areas of the Bible (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-10; 1 Kings 22:20-23). The Lord knows that Satan and his demons are acting unlawfully on earth and keep instigating evil in the heart of humans, but still the Lord has allowed them by respecting the free will of humans to choose the right and reject the evil as a test for the promotion of their lives for now, which will have a eternal repercussion of treasures that will be added to those on the Lord's side which will stay with them as they continue to be the overcomers through faith for eternity ahead.
The fact that Job was facing bad things from the hand of God, is a partly right and partly wrong. The right thing about Job's statement is, in a allowing sense God allows the good and the bad in the life of a believer, and turns it all at the end in to something eternally good for the benefit of the person, this is a fact that happened in the life of Job (Rom 8:28). And God found nothing wrong in the statement made by Job because in reality, Job never knew the talk that went in the heavenlies between God and Satan. Thus the statement made by God through the Scripture, "In all this Job did not sin with his lips", proves the innocence of Job as a man of God who trusted the sovereign hand of God and His goodness in spite of not knowing, what has happened in the heavenlies. The reason for the ordeal of his life is for God to make Job a eternal excellence and a blessing to multitudes including us who get inspired when we hear the valor of this great man of faith and his victory at the end of it all (Isa 60:15).
Thus the devotional write up that brings some important points like, how Job kept on BELIEVING in God's integrity and one day God turned everything for him is a lesson for all believers to learn (Jam 5:11)!
We too as believers can use the time of suffering through trials to learn to wait on God when the miracle doesn't come soon, and also learn how to worship God when the situation instead of getting better becomes worse. The other lesson we can learn is when going through a tough situation WE SHOULD NOT grumble and give up on God, because the rewards are out of this world if we could patiently wait by faith through developing long-suffering and endurance (Heb 10:35-36). Let us as believers RECEIVE the good and the bad from God knowing He's always in sovereign control over our lives, and nothing apart from His permission can happen in our lives. Remember to walk in faith through the trials because at the end of it all, His rewards are greater than His ordeals and tests which will stay with us for now and for eternity ahead!
PRAYER: Dear God help me to go through all tough situations which presently exists in my life according to your will, in spite of me praying and asking You to take it away from me. I know Satan will soon be crushed under my feet soon because of the grace that you are going to give me (Rom 16:20), and you will make a way for me to be victorious through the present ordeal, and through it all will reward me now and for eternity at the end of it all. So I praise you and thank you, in Jesus mighty name Amen."
Much Blessings....
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