Jeremiah 32:41 (NIV) I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.

There is absolutely no question that our God is a good God. The Bible states that multiple times. But it goes way beyond just good. In the scripture above where God says that He will rejoice in doing "them" good, the "them" is none other than the people of Judah that had refused to turn from their wicked ways and were now being exiled to Babylon. Judgment had finally come. Even though the Prophet Jeremiah had spoken the words of warning that the Lord gave him to speak to the people, they were hardhearted and would not turn from the evil things that they were engaged in. It is to these very people that the Lord is saying that He will rejoice in doing them good.

The goodness of God is incomprehensible and hard to understand because He plans good for people who don't come close to deserving it. The hard truth is that none of us deserve the love, mercy and grace that God has poured out on us. In the same way that God was already planning to do good to the people of Judah when they would return from exile, He does the same for us. I believe that all of us can say that we do not have a perfect track record...not even close! But we can all say that God is good and that He has been good to us always, even though we strayed, made mistakes and did bad things. God did not throw us away or give up on us. But what breaks and humbles me the most is that He is glad to do it. He enjoys doing good to us and as the scripture above states, He does it with all of His heart and soul!

The question that remains for us is this: what is our response to the goodness of God that we don't deserve? If He does good to us with all of His heart and soul, does that cause us to love Him with all of our heart and soul? Do our hearts respond to this goodness that stems from the pure and unconditional love of our God? Even in that, God displays His patience and gentleness as He waits for our hearts to be fully devoted to Him. Once the goodness and the love of God finally breaks us down and we respond to it by surrendering our hearts and souls to Him, it is then that we, too, rejoice with all of our heart and soul that the Lord is our God. The Bible says, "Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord" (Psalm 144:15), and that people is us today. It's awesome that the Lord rejoices in doing good to us. How good it is that we can rejoice that we belong to the One that rejoices in doing us good!

Pastor Joey Vazquez