Some days it is easy to believe that God is good; other days, His goodness feels hidden behind a heavy fog of unanswered questions. Psalm 145:17 reminds us that the Lord is perfectly righteous in all He does and unfailingly kind in every work of His hands. That means there is never a moment, never a decision, never a delay from God that is crooked, unfair, or cold. Today is an invitation to trust that even what we do not yet understand is held within the steady hands of a God who is always right and always kind.

The God Who Never Gets It Wrong

We live surrounded by broken judgments—our own included. We misread people, misinterpret circumstances, and misjudge what is best for us. In a world like this, it is stunning to hear Scripture say, “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He” (Deuteronomy 32:4). God never has to revise His opinions, never apologizes for a wrong call, never discovers new information that changes His mind. His righteousness means He is morally perfect, utterly pure, and completely trustworthy.

This changes how we receive His commands and His providence. When He says “no” to sin, it is never to rob us of joy but to guard our souls from destruction. When He closes a door or delays an answer, it is never from indifference, but from wisdom. “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). When we cannot trace what His hand is doing, we can still trust whose hand it is—righteous, steady, and incapable of error.

Gentle Mercy in the Hard Places

God’s righteousness might sound severe until we remember that Psalm 145:17 also tells us He is kind in all that He does. His holiness does not make Him distant; it makes His kindness even more astonishing. “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” (Psalm 34:8). His goodness is not just a doctrine; it is something we are invited to taste—to experience personally in the middle of our real fears and disappointments.

This is clearest at the cross. “But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The same righteous God who must judge sin chose to bear that judgment in our place through His Son. That is justice and kindness meeting in one act of breathtaking love. So when life cuts deep and you are tempted to question His heart, look again to Calvary. The God who gave His Son for you is not suddenly unkind in the lesser details of your story. “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28)—even when that “good” is still unfolding.

Living Like His Ways Are Really Good

If God is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His works, then following Him is not a burden; it is sanity. We do not submit to a grudging boss but to a gracious King who knows exactly how life is meant to flourish. His call is clear: “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). When we imitate His righteousness and kindness in our own choices, we are not inventing a new path; we are simply walking in the light He already walks in.

Today that might look like doing the right thing when no one is watching, forgiving someone who does not deserve it, or choosing gentleness when you feel like snapping. It means trusting His character when your feelings shout the opposite. It means opening His Word, not as a cold list of rules, but as the wise and loving voice of the One who is always right and always kind. As you respond in faith, you will find that His ways, even when costly, are good—and His kindness meets you at every step.

Lord, thank You that all Your ways are righteous and all Your works are kind. Help me today to trust Your heart, obey Your Word, and reflect Your kindness to everyone I meet.

The question of numbers and their relation to success or failure in the work of the Lord is one that disturbs most Christians more than a little.

On the question there are two opposing schools of thought. There are Christians, for instance, who dismiss the whole matter as being beneath them. These correspond to the lovers of high-brow music who firmly refuse to admit that there is anything of any real value other than that composed by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. They know they are in the minority and glory in the fact, for in their opinion it is a very, very superior minority and they look down their noses at all who enjoy anything less complicated than a symphony.

Of course this is cultural snobbery and tells us a lot more about such persons than they would care to have us know. They remind one of the unco-learned of whom Colton wrote, "So much they scorn the crowd that if the throng by chance go right, they purposely go wrong."

Now among religious persons I have met a few who are guilty of a kind of spiritual snobbery of which they are doubtless wholly unaware. These have recoiled so violently from popular, cheap-Jack Christianity that they simply have no longer any sympathy with crowds. They prefer to sit around the Lord's Table in a select and tight little circle, admiring the deep things of God and, I very much fear, admiring themselves a wee bit also. This is a kind of Protestant monasticism without the cowl and the beads, for it seeks to preserve the faith of Christ from pollution by isolating it from the vulgar masses. Its motives may be commendable, but its methods are altogether unscriptural and its spirit completely out of mood with that of our Lord.

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ. - Philippians 1:27

LET no man say that such an injunction is vague or hopeless. You must have a perfect ideal if you are to live at all by an ideal. There cannot be any flaws in your pattern if the pattern is to be of any use. You aim at the stars, and if you do not hit them you may progressively approach them. We need absolute perfection to strain after, and one day - blessed be His Name! - we shall attain it. Try to walk worthy of God, and you will find out how tight that precept grips, and how close it fits.

The love and the righteousness which are to become the law of our lives are revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Whatever may sound impracticable in the injunction to imitate God assumes a more homely and possible shape when it becomes an injunction to follow Jesus. And just as that form of the precept tends to make the law of conformity to the Divine nature more blessed and less hopelessly above us, so it makes the law of conformity to some mere ideal of goodness less cold and unsympathetic. It makes all the difference to our joyfulness and freedom whether we are trying to obey a law of duty, seen only too clearly to be binding, but also above our reach, or whether we have the law in a living Person whom we have learned to love. In the one case there stands upon a pedestal above us a cold perfection, white, complete, marble; in the other case there stands beside us a living law in pattern, a Brother, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, whose hand we can grasp, whose heart we can trust, and of whose help we can be sure. To say to me, " Follow the ideal of perfect righteousness," is to relegate me to a dreary, endless struggling; to say to me, "Follow your Brother, and be like your Father," is to bring warmth and hope and liberty into all my effort. The word that says, "Walk worthy of God," is a royal law, the perfect law of perfect freedom.

When we say, " Walk worthy of God," we mean two things - one, "Do after His example," and the other, "Render back to Him what He deserves for what He has done to you." And so this law bids us measure, by the side of that great love that died on the Cross for us all, our poor, imperfect returns of gratitude and of service. He has lavished all His treasure on you; what have you brought Him back? He has given you the whole wealth of His tender pity, of His forgiving mercy, of His infinite goodness. Do you adequately repay such lavish love? Has He not " sown much and reaped little " in your heart? Has He not poured out the fulness of His affection, and have we not answered Him with a few grudging drops squeezed from our hearts?