Knowing God: Experience & Love Him

The Goodness of God (Psalm 31:19)

Assured that all our Lord’s requests
and plans are good.

Paul J. Bucknell

Series Introduction| Knowing God | The Revelatory God | Goodness of God | Holiness of God | Power of God

Goodness of God handout pdf | Video

Life Questions | Genesis 1 & Goodness | Other Scripture & Goodness | Two Worldviews of Self | Difficulties Believing | Satan's Tactics | Handling Evil | Power of Goodness | Psalms 31:9 | Distinctive of God's Goodness | Good, Evil and God | Study Questions & Projects

Life Questions and the Goodness of God

Purpose: We all ask these two life questions at some point in life, "Who are we?" and "Why am I here?" We take these questions and discuss how our personal relationship with God answers both of these questions! This serves as review of previous lessons and to begin to think about this lesson on the Goodness of God.

God is always good. This is His nature. When we question our Lord’s goodness due to personal difficulties or blatant evil around us, then we are humming the evil one’s tune. Instead, trust in God’s goodness, and your heart will not be troubled.

Growing in our Relationship with God

God is knowable, not just in a general sense of knowing things about God, but through Jesus Christ we can have a personal relationship with Him.

We are not only learning things about God but more deeply knowing and treasuring Him. All that we learn will necessarily be based upon these assumptions. This is not an intellectual study, but one that should greatly affect our spiritual growth through increasing our understanding and faith in this God.

Two significant questions

This clearly relates to two of life’s most important questions that at some point most of us ask,

• “Who am I?”

• “For what purpose am I here?”

Our attempted solutions depend upon our worldview. The only real way to discover the answers to these questions, however, is to go back to the Bible where we learn about our God and the relationship He establishes with us through sending His Anointed One, Jesus Christ into the world.

1) Who am I?

In the scriptures we discover exactly who we are. We are not some mixture of random chemicals. Nor are we part of a world that always existed. We are carefully told that we are His creatures which hold a special place in the universe that He made.

We are God’s creatures, servants designed to fulfill His will. As those who are made in His image, we can relate to Him and even enjoy a relationship with the Lord. As we come to know Jesus as our Savior and Lord, our relationship with Him is restored. We become His child, part of the great family of God, known as the true believers that compose the church.

This study of the attributes of God, then, becomes a quest to know Him so that we can better please Him. Our inner satisfaction is found in doing things in ways that delight our Master, our Heavenly Father. I am His and so I want to know more what He is like so that I can better please Him (see our resources on intimacy in marriage).

2) Why am I here?

As we read the scriptures, we quickly discover God is the cause of all things and because of this He has His purposes for what He does and in particular what He has made. There are reasons He made things the way He did.

This purpose can be traced down to the specific purposes for which He made you and I. Our responsibility in life is not simply to get by in life but to discover what He wants of us and by His grace to accomplish these things.

God made me for a particular purpose which I get to know by better knowing and trusting Him.

Our Task

Our task in this larger study is to take these attributes of God and make sure they help us relate to our Lord. Therefore, we must make sure each study on an attribute of God becomes applicable to how we relate to God. Two worldview studies are included in this chapter on God’s goodness.

There are three main sections of The Goodness of God.

Next page => Genesis 1 and God's Goodness

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=> Other reading

• Previous - Knowing God and The Revelatory God

• Pursuing Our God

Biblical Foundations for Freedom ( BFF )

Rev. Paul J. Bucknell