Live on Purpose

Part 2 from a previous post “God is great…”

We know God is great. We believe it. We claim it. Great means God is better than everything. His ways are higher. His thoughts are higher. His plans are better. He is an impossible-doing, miracle-working God. He is omniscient. He is omnipresent.

So then, why would we ever say simply, “God is good?” I mean isn’t good a step down from great? Isn’t good just good and great is GREAT?

I think there I more to it than that. I think this word GOOD encapsulates the greatness of God in a way that we must have in our life. You see, that GREAT God is big and powerful but at the same time that GREAT God, while he is worthy to be worshipped, because of how GREAT He actually is – He is hard to get to know. He is holy, we are not. He is big, we are not.

SO…

God – the One who is GREAT, shrunk Himself down, put on human skin, and became GOOD. He came close. He came near. HE BECAME PERSONAL. I love how the Message Bible describes this in John 1:14. “The Word became flesh and blood, and MOVED INTO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.”

God didn’t have to do this. He didn’t need to do this for Himself. But remember back in Genesis how we are told that He loved His creation and looked at the humans he created and said, “This is very good.”

Even though He didn’t need us, WE NEEDED HIM. We needed Him to come close. We needed Him to put on skin and “move into the neighborhood.” We needed Him to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. We needed a perfect sacrifice for our sins. He knew we needed Him because He loved us!

Philippians 2 describes the attitude of Christ as that of a servant. That is what a servant is – GOOD. That is what a servant does – GOOD.

Philippians 2:5-8

⁵ Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus,

⁶ who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be used for His own advantage.^[a]
7 Instead He emptied Himself
by assuming the form of a slave,
taking on the likeness of men.
And when He had come as a man
in His external form,
⁸ He humbled Himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.

He went from GREAT to GOOD for you and me! Now we can have a PERSONAL relationship with that GREAT God. We can know the holiness of God because through Christ we are made holy.

So God is GOOD. In Christ, God is close. In Christ, God is accessible. In Christ, God is relational.

So feel that today. Don’t just concentrate on a God who is big and mighty even though He is. Also concentrate on a God who is close and knowable. The more you KNOW Him as GOOD, the more you will worship Him as GREAT!

Live on Purpose!