No matter how painful our lives are or have been, we all have tasted enough of the kindness of God to love him and worship him forever.

In Kindness God Sends Rain on the Just and the Unjust

I was speaking with a relative recently who has lived long and experienced much hardship, suffering, and loss. In such seasons she has repeatedly experienced help from other people that enabled her to survive and cope. She has never forgotten the kindnesses people have shown in her times of need, and she lives to do the same for others. She said, “The human virtue that I value most is kindness.”

She is not the only one.

It is kindness, God’s kindness, that draws us to him.

God sends rain on the just and the unjust

God is both benevolent, as we saw in my previous post, and beneficent. These words do not have the same meaning.

Webster’s dictionary defines beneficent as “doing or producing good” especially in the sense of “performing acts of kindness and charity.” Last week we looked at God’s goodwill, which is an attitude; today we look at his good actions.

Acts 17:25 says God “himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

Psalm 145:9, 15, 16 says, “The LORD is good to all, and hismercy is over all that he has made…. The eyes of all look to you, and you givethem their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire ofevery living thing.”

Jesus said that our Father in heaven “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).

God does good things for everyone, even those who reject him and do extreme evil. He shows universal kindness.

For example, our five senses

God gives not only sunshine and rain to all kinds of people, even to those who do not return his love as they should, but also such wonderful gifts as the five human senses: eyesight to look upon the beauties that fill the earth; hearing, which enables us to communicate with others and enjoy music; smell, which enables us to taste food (thanks be to God!) and enjoy the fragrances of flowers and nature; taste; and touch (imagine going through daily life with a body that could not sense touch, as though you received a 24/7, full-body novocaine shot).

Any one of these senses is a treasure by itself. All come from the God of universal kindness, not from evolution, not “mother nature,” not from chance, but from the deliberate design of the God who controls all things in your life even before you are born. If you have any physical senses, you should thank not your parents or your chromosomes, but your beneficent God. They are just one example of his kindness.

Entitled

One indicator of just how great is God’s universal kindness is how much people take their blessings for granted and either neglect to thank God or deny that he is the source of every good. God’s universal kindness is so great that people think that they deserve a life filled with good things. They think the world just ought to be filled with sunshine, rain, fertile soil, food of innumerable varieties, people, natural resources in the ground, blue sky and livable temperatures, green grass, beautiful and fruitful trees, flowers, birds, edible vegetables, animals, fish, clean water, music—to name just a few of our God’s universal kindnesses.

If we go to Mars or any other planet, we see that such a profusion of goodness is not automatic.

Obviously, not every person enjoys every kindness. In our fallen world, which groans under the consequences of sin, life in this world can be cruel, and people can suffer great harm, deprivation, and handicap. But even in those circumstances, there is goodness and mercy from God. There is the gift of existence as a conscious, living being, of this earthly life, and the offer of eternal life through God’s gift of Jesus Christ.

God’s love is beneficent, marked by universal kindness expressed to every person. It is an expression of his grace, his unmerited favor. And it also has a purpose: “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (Romans 2:4).

God’s wallet

I read one author who said he always carries a one-hundred-dollar bill in his wallet reserved for one purpose. He gives it away as God leads.

Likewise, God has an infinite number of one-hundred-dollar bills in his wallet, and he’s giving them all away, daily, over and over again, to every person in the world. He enjoys it. His beneficence is the tangible expression of his benevolence. His universal kindness is the concrete outworking of his goodwill.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: To feel that God owes us more.

God’s way: To lavish kindness on all.

God’s holy name is kindness revealed in countless benefits.

We have not yet seen the full extent of God’s holy kindness and goodness, though we have seen much (see preceding posts one, two, and three to get the full picture). Let’s explore another Bible passage that reveals much more.

Psalm 103 begins:

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (verses 1–2).

These verses tell us what the psalm is going to be about. It will reveal (a) God’s holy name, and (b) all the ways God benefits us.

(a) and (b) are one. We saw last week that people in Bible times used the word name not merely as a label but rather as a substitute for self. If I said that you had a good name, I meant that you are good, that your character is good. So, this psalm will describe God’s name, character, ways, identity. But the writer summarizes all the description that follows in verses 3–18 here in verse 1 as “holy.” We should read each verse in the psalm as a facet of God’s holy name.

God’s holy benefits

Those who experience God’s “holy name” experience “benefits.” Holy means good and kind. Holy means God brings good things into our lives, and verses 3–18 provides the heaping list of holy benefits:

God is the one “³ who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
⁵ who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
⁶ The LORD works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.
⁷ He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. ⁸ The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
⁹ He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. ¹⁰ He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
¹³ As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. ¹⁴ For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. ¹⁵ As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; ¹⁶ for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
¹⁷ But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, ¹⁸ to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.” (Psalm 103:3–18)

All this is God’s holy name. This is who he is in holiness, what he does in holiness, the ways he deals with us in holiness. This is why the writer begins the psalm by saying he wants to bless God’s holy name.

So, when you think about God as holy, this is a major part of what should come to your mind: benefits, kindness, goodness. The writer of the psalm wants to bless our holy God because holy means good.