Bill Johnson - God is Good: He’s Better Than You Think

ABOUT BILL JOHNSON

B ill Johnson is a fifth-generation pastor with a rich heritage in the Holy Spirit. Bill and his wife, Beni, are the senior leaders of Bethel Church in Redding, California, and serve a growing number of churches that cross denominational lines, demonstrate power, and partner for revival. Bills vision is for all believers to experience Gods presence and operate in the miraculousas expressed in his bestselling books When Heaven Invades Earth and Hosting the Presence. The Johnsons have three children and nine grandchildren.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Michael Van Tinteren and Kristy Tillman, my assistants, for their assistance with scheduling and research. I am especially grateful to Pam Spinosi for her help in editing my materialpriceless work. Much thanks to Dann Farrelly and the BSSM team for their amazing job on the Addendum. Also, much thanks to Larry Sparks of Destiny Image for his encouragement and patience in the longer-than-normal writing process needed for God Is Good. You all represent Him well. Thanks.

God describes Himself as gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. God is good and, by nature, in a good mood.

Psalm 119:68

You are good and do good; teach me Your statutes.

Genesis 1:31

God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Psalm 104 (the whole chapter)

Psalm 103:813

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

Zephaniah 3:17

The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

Galatians 5:2223

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Matthew 7:11

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!

Exodus 34:57

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the Lord. Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.

Acts 14:1617, NIV

In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.

Acts 17:2231 (Paul speaking to the men of Athens)

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, For we also are His children. Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.

Jesus reveals the love, priorities, and goodness of the Father in His ministry and sacrificeHe is perfect theology.

Hebrews 1:23

In these last days God has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Colossians 1:19

For it was the Fathers good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.

Colossians 2:9

For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.

John 1:1,18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

John 3:1617

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

John 14:67

Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.

John 8:111,19 (the story of the woman caught in adultery)

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say? They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you? She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said, I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.So they were saying to Him, Where is Your Father? Jesus answered, You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.