The Goodness of God - Part 1 - Is God Good?

We're living in victory! The battle's won in victory! We've overcome whatever comes our way! No one can change the sea! We're living in victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Hello, this is Mike Kennedy with the Living in Victory broadcast. Thank you for joining me today. We're going to start a new series today that goes over the goodness of God. Is God really that good? We're going to get into the scripture and find out, is He good? You know, there are many, many, many people on this planet today that believe that God is not really that good. People that believe that God has a mean side to Him, that He's out to get you. If you don't submit and do it His way, He's going to get you. But that's a lie. And we're going to get into why that's a lie and how to live in the goodness of God. How to do things to the point where His plans of blessings, of prosperity manifest in our life. Amen? The simple truth that God is a good God, that He has plans to prosper you and me. Amen? So my question to you, is God good? How good is He? When is He good? When is He not good? You know, He is better to us than we recognize. And He wants to do better in our lives.

He wants to bless us. But the book of the Word of God is a book of laws, checks and balances. We must do things His way to live in the goodness of God. Isaiah 119 says, If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land. This series is based on Psalms 34.8 and John 10.10. If you would, turn to Psalms 34.8 and we're going to get into this. But let's join our faith together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we ask You for grace. We ask You for revelation of Your Word today. Help us to see Your goodness. To walk in Your goodness. To experience Your goodness. Reveal to us things in our lives that are preventing goodness from operating in our life. Areas we've opened up a door to the enemy. To shut down the goodness. That's opened up an opportunity for Him to kill, steal, and destroy. We ask You for this, Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, Psalms 34.8 says, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Taste and see what? That the Lord is good. It makes me think of somebody in the kitchen that is a really good chef. And they say, come and taste this. And you're like, mmm, that is so good. And they're like, wait until you try dessert. There's more coming. Amen. When you taste good things, you know it.

You know if it tastes good or not. You know, there's a lot of religious junk out there that says, Oh, God may be good, but sometimes He's going to get you. They are confused. That is confusion. God is a good God. If you don't believe it, I encourage you to stay with me in this series. If you say, yeah, but you don't know what I've done. Stay with us. We're going to talk about the goodness of God. How to experience the goodness of God. And the truth about whether or not He will get you. Amen. You know, if God is partnering with the devil. Where sometimes He's like, devil, you can't touch Him. And other times He's like, go get Him. Man, if He's partnering with the devil, there's no way out. There's no way up. But that's a lie. It's confusion. It is not true. Amen. That'd be like sending out a battalion. One to train to fight against the enemy. And another battalion to go and fight with them. To train the enemy. No, God doesn't do that. Amen. Only religious theologians come up with these type of bizarre ideas. It's not scriptural. It's not godly.

It's confusion because they don't know how to answer things. I can answer any question you may have. Yes, any question. Most of the time or many times it's going to be like, I don't know. But I know who does know. Amen. Hallelujah. Even a three-year-old knows what is good, what is fun, what is life. Amen. Don't make this confusion. using. God is good all the time. So why do good things happen to, why do bad things happen to good people? I'm going to go over that in this series. Amen. Hold your place here, but look at John 10 10. This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Oh they're all good, but this one I like. John 10 10 says the thief does not come except, the only reason he comes is not to bless you. The only reason the thief, Satan, the devil, the only reason he comes is to steal and to kill and to destroy. He tries to steal the word from you because without the word we aren't going to win. We don't have eternal life. We don't have victory. Amen. And it goes on to say, I have come, Jesus said this, I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly, the abundant life. So the thief will come with attacks to attack your finances, your health, bring in pain. He will, he will attack your marriage, your relationships, your integrity, your job. Amen. But Jesus came to give us good life, abundant life. That a word abundantly means excessive, super added, exceeding the need, super abundance, super charged. Amen. It'd be like having a supercharger on your Shelby GT Mustang. You can spin the tires man, create some smoke, you got power, you're going to get out of here. That's the type of power we're talking about. Amen. God is good. The enemy is bad. It's pretty simple. God is good. Satan is evil. He comes to hurt you. So why do you want to hurt, to be involved in somebody who just wants to hurt you? Satan is a loser. He got a big L tattooed right here on his forehead. Big L for loser. He's the biggest loser of all time. People just don't know it. I got a friend who was in an outlaw club for about 50 years now. He knows Jesus. Glory to God. His club name was loser. And after he got saved, he started going by his real name. He didn't want people calling him that. Amen. He had revelation.

He had light. No, he's a winner. Amen. And I call you a winner. If you know Jesus, you are a winner. But even though you know Jesus, we need to understand and know our authority in Jesus. I had a series about the authority of the believer. It's on our website. You can get it. You need to know your authority as a child of God, who you are in Jesus. You also need to know the goodness of God and how to receive the goodness and things that will hinder the goodness from happening in your life. Amen. Oh, my, my. You know, I've heard people say, oh, God took them. No, God does not take. The enemy takes. Amen. We'll get into that in detail before we're done with this series. But let's continue on in Psalms. Psalms 34 verse 8 says, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trust in him. Trust is another word for faith. Blessed is a man who has faith in God. Trust in God. You know, I used to have a 1950 Panhead Harley Davidson. Man, it was cool. Had a side shifter on it. Had called Suicide Clutch. It had ape hangers, man. Kickstart. It was a cool bike, man. You'd be riding down the road just hang time, man. It was awesome. But it would leave you beside the road. It would break down. It had some issues. But when it was working, it was fun. But see, my Street Glide, it will get me home. It's good. I've never had a problem with it. It's a blessed bike. That's what God has planned for you. The blessed life. Amen. That will take you to the goodness, not leave you stranded, not leave you on the side of the road, not leave you in lack. Amen. God has been given a bad rap. Oh, you won't prosper if you're a Christian. You can't go out and party and have fun. Oh, you're not going to get healed. He's trying to teach you something with that. Well, where's your scripture? If he's trying to teach you something, figure out what he's trying to teach you. If you believe that ungodly idea and learning and overcome it. Amen. You know, I grew up in a church where, you know, they taught God's trying to teach you something. We just don't understand. No, it's ignorance. You need to get in the word and find out what the scripture says and how to overcome and how to. Receive what Jesus bought and paid for. Amen. This is some of the fake news of today's millennium. Is that God won't prosper you. Oh he's trying to teach you something through healing. It's fake news. Get rid of it. Amen. A lot of preachers over time have preached oh and whoa. Not oh the goodness of God but whoa

hellfire and brimstone. He gonna get you. It's a lie. A lie from the pits of hell. Amen. That is not good news. Gospel means good news. If God's gonna get you. If he's gonna hurt you. If he's gonna put sickness on you. That's not good news. It's simple. Amen. Good news. Gospel means good news about the good things our good God desires to do for us. I'll repeat that. Gospel means it's good news about the good things our good God wants to do for us. Glory to God. Let's back up to Psalms chapter 34 verse 1. It says, I will bless the Lord at all times. Now this is a choice. You can either curse him. Amen. People do that all the time and they use his name in vain. No. We should choose to bless the Lord. Amen. And then they curse their mower, their car. It's always broken. That GD. No. You don't want to do that. You want to bless it. It will last as long as I need it and the time to really do it is when you're in a trial with it. Amen. When the enemy's trying to attack. When he's bringing on the issues. Now that's a blessed car. It's going to last all the days I need it. Money won't be a problem. Amen. I will. It's a choice. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Why? Because you're a religious nut. You know, not long ago an outlaw biker came up to Sharon and he said, are you one of them bible thumpers? Hitting people over the head with it? No. She said, no but I can read it well real well. Want me to read some of it to you? He started laughing and she ended up sharing the word with him. Glory to God. No. Your praise will continually be in your mouth because you know that God has protected you. He has healed you. He has provided for you. Amen. He has plans to prosper you. If you believe the Word of God, you should have an expectancy of good things coming

your way. Amen. Verse 2. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord. In other words, you shall testify of God's goodness. What He has done for you. You may say, I'm not a preacher. No, but you can still say, God has protected me. Man, the enemy tried to take me out. Car came through the stop sign, just ran it, but He protected me. He protected my child. Amen. Glory to God. The humble shall hear of it and be glad. Because if you're humble, you realize that if it was all your ability, your knowledge, your strength, you would know nothing. And we'd know nothing as what we ought. We would understand that God gave us the ability to walk, to think, to breathe. Without Him holding this universe together, man, we'd have some serious problems. The earth would just spin out of control and be out of our galaxy, and we'd all be dead. But because His Word holds it together. That's scriptural. His Word holds it together. Amen. Because of that, we should be glad. We should be thankful. Because man, if Satan had it his way, you would be dead right now. You would be in a situation where you would not want to be. If it wasn't for the mercy and goodness of God, we'd all be dead and in hell. But because He loves us, because of His mercy, He sent our Lord and Savior and we can have eternal life and we can have prosperity in this life. Amen. Glory to God. The humble shall hear of it and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Praise His name. You should do that right now. Amen. Brag on God. You know, years ago we were in Sturgis during Bike Week and there was a small club close to us that was mocking us for prayer in the morning. We were praising God. Hallelujah. They were mocking us. Well, a storm came in and man, that storm destroyed their camp. A tree fell on their van. A tent wasn't even blown over on in our camp. Well, I can tell you their perspective

changed. They wanted prayer. We were able to love on them because we were not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus. Jesus Christ, don't be ashamed of it. Oh, there's times you don't need to go in and try to push your beliefs. There's environments you don't need to do that. Could be at work, it could be with a family member who thinks you're a nut, they won't receive from you. All you're doing is putting up a roadblock, putting up more distance between you. There's times you don't need to do that. But don't be ashamed of the gospel, amen? Ask the Lord to send laborers into their path that they can see the truth. Glory, hallelujah. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. Why? Because he's delivered us, he's set us free, he's given us prosperity, he's given us health, he's protected us, and he has plans to prosper us from now through eternity. Glory to God. Verse four, I sought the Lord. That means you need to seek him, you need to pray, you need to find time where it's just you seeking God. It could be in your jail cell, it could be when you're getting ready to lay down at night and you're just sitting there praising him in the dark, amen?

I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me out of a few of my fears. No, he delivered me out from all of my fears. All your fear is gone. So how many are left? None. No fear, no phobias, amen? You're not afraid to get in a plane. You're not afraid to get on a motorcycle, amen? You're not shy and don't wanna talk in front of people. No, that's a level of fear. Get rid of it, amen? You may not be called to be in that place, but don't let fear rule you, amen? I had that when I was younger. I was talking in the company and they had me start to give a speech and I was like this and held my hand over here. And then I said, can I start over? Everyone laughed at me because I had a fear of people making fun of me, people not understanding who I was, you know, good old country boy. But the Lord brought me out of my fears. Most people have some kind of fear operating in their life, but we are supposed to be set free from fear, no fear, amen? Many stickers will say, I ain't scared. You'll see it on motorcycle helmets and stuff. These people are terrified of getting busted, caught. They're afraid to die.

I'm not afraid to die because I know where I'm going. Oh, I don't believe it's my time, but boy, when I blow this popsicle stand, I'm outta here. I know where I'm going. I'm going to get my crown of glory, amen? I'm going to go serve the king of kings. I'm one of the kings that he has created. I am a son of God. And if you receive Jesus as your Lord, that's your future. Amen? You may say I'm in prison the rest of my life. This life is the shortest thing you will ever do. You blow out of here, man. You've got a crown, hallelujah. Don't be moved by those things. Yeah, you may have messed up. You may be doing some time, amen? But look at your future. Keep your eyes on the prize of eternal life that you have in Christ Jesus. Oh, glory to God, hallelujah. See, Satan tries to get people scared with doctor reports. Oh, you're going to die. Financial issues. Ain't never going to come out of this. He's a known liar. If he's telling you that, then that means you are coming up and out. Judge is going to throw the book at you, man. He going to get you for everything he can.

Now, God is merciful. You can ask God for mercy and favor and mercy with the judge, amen? Be honest, truthful, admit it, change. You know, I like the saying that brother Jesse DePlantis says admit it, quit it, forget it. Get on with it, man. Don't let the enemy keep reminding you of where you've made mistakes. You've been washed clean, it's gone. Remind him of his future. Go tick, tock, tick, tock. You know, there's a time, Satan, whenever you're going to be put in the pits of hell, an angel going to come down, put you in the chains and you are going to pay. For me, when you're in the chains, I'm in glory. You want to talk about where I'm going versus where you're going and he's out of here, hallelujah. The enemy will try to say, they're going to leave me. Oh no, what am I going to do? Oh, I'm afraid I'm going to get fired. What are you afraid of? God has plans to prosper you. If you've messed up, yeah, you may have some consequences, but God will bring you up and out. If you turn towards him, hallelujah. Glory to God. Verse five, they looked to him and were radiant and their faces were not ashamed.

This poor man cried out and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all. His troubles. Remember, all means all. And the angel of the Lord encamps around all those who fear Him and delivers them. Well, Mike, I thought you just said that we are supposed to be delivered from all fears. You know, the word fear here means reverence. Amen. Those who reverence Him, those who honor Him, those who submit to Him. Amen. Glory to God. He's powerful. Amen. If you're not right, get right with Him and walk in His goodness. Be protected by His power. Amen. Have some reverence of Him. Be thankful that the angel of the Lord kept you from being destroyed. He's protected you. That's why this man said, oh, taste and see, because you should already know that there's times where the mercy of God protected you. He brought you out. But where there's more to experience, we need to experience more of the goodness of God. Verse 8. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in Him. Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints. There is no want, which means no lack, to those who fear are in reverence of Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack anything. If you want to experience more of His blessings, more of the blessings from God, it starts with getting saved. How many of you want to burn in hell for eternity? I see that hand. I see that hand. No, there's no hands going up with people saying, I want to go to hell. You know, a lot of club guys they'll say, see you in hell, brother. But they don't recognize what that really means. They don't want to burn in terror for their eternity when they could be living in glory, walking on streets of gold and the blessings of God. No. Satan, this is what hell was designed for, is for Him, not for you. If you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to receive Him now. Say, Heavenly Father, I believe that You sent Your Son Jesus. He died on the cross, went to hell to pay for my sins, rose from the dead. Jesus, I ask You to be my Lord and Savior. I receive You now. I ask You to cleanse me. Amen. If you said that, your name is written in the books of heaven. Let us know. Reach out to us. Tell us you got saved. Amen. Well, this is Mike Kennedy. I encourage you to keep with us

on this series. Amen. Hello, Shara and I want to thank each and every one of you who have partnered with us, those who have sown into the ability of us to get the word out, those of you who have prayed for us. Amen. Shara and I could not fulfill the call without you. You know, King David, he settled something back in the Old Testament thousands of years ago. When they went to battle, some people stayed back and took care of their wives and children. And when they came back, some of the people did not want to share some of the spoils, some of the gold and things they had obtained. And he said, no, we couldn't have done it without these men staying back, protecting our women, our children. He says, we all get a portion of it. And so, why should Shara and I get eternal rewards by ourselves when we couldn't do it without you, our partners? Absolutely. So, because of that, you get a portion of the same rewards we get, eternal rewards for the work that is being done to take forth the gospel around the world. And our broadcast is not just going around the world on things like YouTube, social media, but it's also on radio in China, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal, North and South Korea because of what you guys have sown into. Amen? And we are grateful for what has been done with our partners. You know, part of the work we are doing isn't just going to the highways and byways and drawing them in that the church may be full, according to Luke. You know, when we go to outlaw biker events, things of that nature, but the broadcast is also going forward. And the broadcast is going forward in over 400 prisons every week across this nation. There's only a couple states, such as the state of Hawaii, that does not have the broadcast going forth in state and federal prisons. But Sherri, would you share just a little bit about some of the testimonies and some of the people who have gotten saved? The reports we have received. Mike, we've had 788,047 downloads.

That's just in a year and a couple of months. Yeah, 15 months since we started in prison and there's been 788,000 views by prisoners. Glory to God. And we've had 2,239 salvations. That's brothers and sisters that are now coming to the Lord. Glory to God. This is in prison. You know, in 15 months, that's an average of around eight people per day getting saved. Hallelujah. My, this word is going forth. Amen. Glory to God. And then we also have 23,243 people these are in the prisons. In the prisons, in there. That are subscribing to our ministry to hear the word of God every single week. Every time it posts. Glory to God. Every time. They are notified and they can watch the broadcast. Yes, it's like a little church. Exactly. One thing we are doing is we're sewing a book that I wrote called the Glorious Life of Faith. Amen. And we're giving it to prisoners. We're able to sew it to them at no charge to them so that they can read testimonies

about the goodness of God. Learn about the different kinds of faith. Amen. We've had 11,068 people that have downloaded and read the book. So we are so thankful. Glory to God. Hallelujah that have access to this book. Every one of the people in the prisons which is over a million inmates have access to the book without any charge. Hallelujah. And there's testimonies of things that have happened in the biker world, things that have happened when I was in the software industry in places like Russia that are in this book, building their faith. Glory to God. And out of that, I was thinking about what it would have taken if we had to pay to have these books sent to them. And our partner's sewing into us, allowing us to send it no charge. The book, by the time we pay for postage and shipping is a right around $15 a book. If we had to do it by ourselves, Sharon and I would have had to pay $165,000 so far to get the book to them. But because of our partners, this book has gone forth without any expense to them.

Hallelujah. Glory to God. Thank you partners. We just wanna say hi to our brothers and sisters in the prison. Yeah, this is going forth to them. We love you guys and we're expecting big things to happen in your lives. Yes. Apostle Paul in Philippians 1, 19 and 20, he also said that he expected his partners to stand with him in prayer. And that created a corporate anointing and that they were blessed because of the work Paul has done. So partners, we call you blessed in the name of Jesus. Glory to God. Hallelujah. We are blessed in Jesus name. Yes, yes, yes. If you would like to be a partner, if the Lord leads you, okay? Sharon and I are very diligent not to ask for money. We ask God who is our abundant source and provider. Amen. But he uses people, he utilizes people and he wants to put money into your account. If this ministry is on your heart to help us fulfill the call that God has on our lives, you can become a partner.

You can become a partner by joining in prayer with us. Amen. Speaking over us. Amen. But if it's on your heart to become a monthly partner and sow into us financially, you can do that as well. We are a nonprofit 501c3 organization. If you decide that you would like to do that, there's a couple of ways. Of course, you can sow into us by sending a check to our offices, but on our website, there is links where you can sow through PayPal. You can sow through an app called Kindred. You can download an app from Kindred when you text a certain number. It will allow you to download an app on your smartphone, which also gives you all the messages automatically on the app. And those are free of charge. Exactly. Everything we do is free of charge to all the inmates. All the word goes forth free. The only thing that is charged for, and it's because of where we are right now, is the book. If somebody wants to buy it, I don't currently have the ability to print them, so we use Amazon. Amazon, and so because of the way Amazon does it and what their fees are up front, this book,

unless you're an inmate, has to be bought and paid for. Unless you contact our office, we can try to help you. But that's one way to get it, is through Amazon. There's a link on our website. But if you want to be a partner and so into us online through Kindred, you have to give, G-I-V-E, give to phone number 865-4137-656. That is 865-4137-656. It also stands for 865-4-1-F-Q-M-I-N for Final Quest Ministries. So if it's on your heart and you want to do that, do as the Lord leads. But we appreciate your prayers. We have, we desire your prayers. We need your prayers to fulfill the call and we thank you for them. Yes. Amen. Thank you, thank you. Glory to God. Do you have anything you'd like to share? You know, Mike, we are. We're so thankful for our partners. And ever since we started Final Quest Ministries over 30 years ago, we have never, ever asked for a dime. We've always chosen to give our materials free of charge. And, you know, even with the book,

if you would like one, you can contact our offices and we'll send you one free of charge. If you can't afford it on Amazon, we're happy to do that. Yes, yes, yes. And we can do that because of partners who have sown into us. Thank you, Lord. Our heart is to get the word out for the kingdom to be built. Amen. Well, this is Mike and Shara with Living in Victory. Have a blessed day. Amen. Amen. ♪