I often hear church people say, “the Lord is good.” It’s a popular religious cliché. But how do you know He is good? Is it merely because the Bible says He is? Is it just because others told you so? What is your personal testimony as it relates to the goodness of the Lord?
The psalmist writes, “O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” (Psalm 34:8, NASB). This verse calls on us to experience God so we can know He is good. To “taste” means to test by trying. That in turn enables us to “see” the Lord’s goodness with our own eyes.
In Christianity, we often talk about faith and trusting God. But we must do more than talk about those spiritual disciplines. We must be willing to live accordingly. It is when we follow faith and trust wherever they lead that we will discover God’s goodness. This is what the psalmist means by tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.
We are not on a mission to establish the goodness of the Lord. That He is good is already settled in the heavens. His goodness is declared throughout the Scriptures. This truth cannot be altered by the opinions of men or our personal experiences. But we should “taste and see” so we can experience God and testify of His goodness in our own life.
Cultivating Our Relationship with the Lord
As for the benefit of tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, note the end of the verse: “How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.” The point is that only those who know the Lord is good will take refuge in Him. This truth speaks to the importance of cultivating our relationship with the Lord.
Mere talk is cheap. One can talk about how good the Lord is all that she wants to. But stability does not come through religious talk. Rather, it comes through a relationship with the Lord that is rooted in experience.
The fact that the Lord is good does not mean life will always be good to us. All of us will have bad experiences in this life. During those times, God can seem so far away. That’s when you have to know the Lord is good. So, the psalmist wrote, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13, KJV).
One reason some believers fail to stand firm in the day of adversity is they don’t personally know the Lord is good. Our ability to stand is a function of our ability to believe to see the goodness of the Lord toward us.
Copyright © 2024 by Frank King. All rights reserved.