God is good. (Psalm 145:9)

God gives abundance. (John 10:10)

He is not the thief that steals, kills or destroys. (John 10:10)

He’s not the accuser of the brethren, the slanderer, the gossip. (Revelation 12:10)

He’s not authoring the chaos or confusion. (1 Corinthians 14:33)

He’s peace. (Isaiah 26:3)

He’s love. (1 John 4)

He’s giving life. (Acts 17:25)

He’s not putting sickness, cancer, disease, tragedy in your life. (John 10:10).

He’s the only One who has the ability to work the chaos and disorder of the enemy of this world out for your good (Romans 8:28).

He’s the one with the purpose and plan for your life that brings hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)

The goodness of God gives you authority to turn the tables on the devil. (Luke 10:19)

You don’t have to believe yourself to be a modern day Job.

You’ve got Jesus, Job didn’t. 

Read Job through the filter of the NEW covenant remembering that Job didn’t have the Holy Spirit like we do.

Job didn’t know about the prowling lion, seeking whom he could devour…

Jesus had not come yet. The world was given over to satan by one man’s sin.

I’m not saying that bad things don’t or won’t happen in this life.

I’m saying that God is not authoring them against you.

God is FOR YOU.

You may have a present day mess on your hands. You may have a real heartache.

God is FOR YOU.

You may have walked through some terrible things in life.

God is FOR YOU.

I have too, friend. And I know.

I used to think that God was creating these terrible things to punish me, to penalize me, to keep me humble, to teach me a lesson the hard way.

But this is not the good nature of God.

God’s not authoring, thinking up, creating the chaos: He’ll use what’s been planned against, or bad choices you’ve sown, for your good.

Do you believe that God wants to help you?

Do you believe that God cares about your successes, your failures, and your cares in life?

If you think like I always did—waiting constantly on the proverbial other shoe to drop— the next bad thing to come because you messed up again, then you aren’t really sure that God is good… you aren’t sure if God is for you… and God to you is no more than a pagan god like zeus, a punisher for wrong-doing.

I don’t claim to have all the answers. Neither does anyone else.

But I have tasted personally and seen personally that He Is Good.

If you say that He’s good to this person, but not to you— He healed him, but not them— then that contradicts the verse that God is no respecter of persons.

And what about this verse? “God’s ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts…” This verse is in Isaiah 55.

Go read Isaiah 53, 54, and then Isaiah 55 to get it in context.

How we ever taken this verse and said that this was God authoring chaos to teach us a lesson I haven’t the slightest clue. These chapters are talking about His Good ways and about Jesus and what His coming would do for us! Check it out for yourself.

What about this verse in Job? ‘Though you slay me, still I praise you.’ It is vital that Job didn’t turn his praise from the Almighty despite his circumstance, and it’s the same for us.

But here’s my question: why do we say God ‘slayed’ Job—doesn’t the Bible clearly say satan was behind it?

Did God know it was happening? Yes.

Didn’t the enemy have rule over the world because of Adam? Yes.

Had Jesus come to overcome the enemy of the world yet? No.

Did Job have the Holy Spirit to empower him to call off the darkness in Jesus’ name? No.

Job didn’t have the Holy Spirit. The Bible doesn’t show us that Job even knew about Satan.

We have to filter the context. Old covenant is vitally important and necessary to study to know God.

But it was pre-Jesus.

Just the facts.

Jesus tells the New Testament believer that in this life you will have trouble- but to take heart- He’s overcome.

What’s trouble that Jesus talked about, then?

I believe that it can be persecution, and the results thereof for following Christ, it can be sowing and reaping of our own wrong choices and mistakes, it can be an enemy attack because the devil hates you, and it can also be just because we live in a jacked up world and we will have to reap the negative consequences of someone else’s bad choices at times.

We sow strife, we will reap damaged relationships.

We don’t work, we don’t eat.

We commit a crime and break the law, we pay the consequence.

We don’t take care of our cars, they will leave us stranded.

If someone decides to drive drunk someone uninvolved can be hurt.

If someone decides to scam on their taxes, they will get jail time.

We don’t believe God and take the time to get to know Him and what He promises, we don’t receive from Him either…

Simple as that.

God’s not guilty.

God’s not willed that tragedy into your life to teach you some lesson- it’s the Word of God that is profitable for reproof and correction… for teaching. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

That’s all we need…to listen and do the Word.

We are the believers in Jesus… we should have the upper hand in this world because we know how the story ends. (John 14:1-3)

The story ends the way it does because of the Goodness of God.

God is good, no matter what. 

God’s the same yesterday, today and forever.

Don’t let your theology, doctrine or denomination give the enemy’s lie a foothold to confuse who is actually authoring the chaos in your life.

Don’t let something chaotic or deadly destroy you or someone you love because you think it’s ‘God’s Will’ that they suffer.

Don’t let your religion limit the Holy One of Israel and what He wants to do in your life.

Let Him out of that stuffy Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, Charismatic box you may have Him in…

Read the Bible and see what God of the Bible would say to your situation… what Jesus did already on the cross for that hard thing in your life.

Take the authority God gave you, and walk it out. Put it to work. Shut the devil up.

We are under the New Testament covenant. 

We have Jesus. 

And Jesus said Himself, It Is Finished.

Not “it will be finished when I come back, keep hanging on!’ not ‘in the sweet by and by after I bring you home,’ either.

It WAS finished that very day on calvary.

It IS finished now, and forever.

Yes and Amen.