The devil will whisper negative things in your ear to make you doubt God’s goodness, but if you will break through those barriers and shout out loud ‘I believe God is good!’ you will see a transformation within you and in your circumstances that will make you happy and excited! Look what the Lord has done for you!

Listen to this sermonCrown the year with goodness
Andre Pelser
26/11/2005

Psalm 65:11
11Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.

NIV
You crown the year with your bounty,
and your carts overflow with abundance.

Here are some meditations on the goodness of God that will cause us to give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

Receive your Crown of goodness!
The Hebrew word for crown is ‘atar’ and it can be used in three ways: in simple straight forward action to crown, in a repeated action and to describe an actual crowning. It means to surround or compass about. The Lord surrounds us with His goodness at the end of the year. At the end of the year when everyone is tired and weary, those who wait upon the Lord receive a special crown! What a wonderful reward! And He does this continually – every year – if you can believe it!

Look at what the Lord has done in your life this year: of course there were moments that you would rather forget – but in spite of that He crowns your year finally with His goodness! What a Saviour! What a Lord!

It is necessary to realise that we cannot crown ourselves – we cannot crown our own year with goodness – He has to do it. Christ never crowned Himself. His Father had to do it. Men mocked him and despised Him, but His Father crowned Him with glory.

Paul understood this: he knew a crown awaited him at the end of his race. He looked on the rewards of God as a winner’s prize. But besides the ultimate rewards in the next life our Lord also crowns each year with goodness!

The Greek word for crowning is ‘stephanos’, it means ‘victorious’.

You are crowned with Goodness!
The word for goodness in Hebrew is ‘towb’ and has the following connotations:
It is agreeable and pleasant to the senses, to the intellect and to the higher nature of the spirit of man. It satisfies spirit, soul and body. When God shows his goodness it does not only satisfy our selfish nature, it satisfies our inner man, our spirit man as well as our souls and intellect!

How quickly earthly pleasures fade away, but when God crowns us with goodness it satisfies us deeply – it is pleasant for a long time.

Dr. Gray, at Miracle Valley Bible College in Arizona, tried to explain it to us in this way: if you drink Milo it brings immediate satisfaction to your taste buds, but within 5 minutes you have forgotten what it tastes like. But when God satisfies you it lasts and lasts and lasts!

Used as an adjective, ‘towb’ describes something valuable that indicates prosperity: you will prosper and grow in understanding too. When God bestows his goodness on us he makes us prosperous. He does not only give us money, he makes us rich on the inside as well. He gives us rich understanding. When you understand God’s ways it is a crown of life. You can live your life differently. He satisfies both our sensual and our spiritual natures with His goodness.

What was the worst moment in your life this year? God wants to crown in with glory at the end of the year. He wants to give you understanding and help you work through that moment.

Other people may have treated you badly at school or in the work place or even in church! But today God is crowning your year with goodness! He is making everything work together for good because you love Him and you are called according to His purpose which is to be conformed to the image of His Son in a corporate body of believers of which He is the Head!

‘Towb’ also indicates ethical goodness. When God acts benignly towards us it is not only for our pleasure and our understanding, but also to make us pure and ethical in our thoughts and actions. He purifies our motives when He shows us His kindness.

Only Jesus Christ could have made all of this possible. His goodness leads us to repentance! He is so good to us that we eventually repent of all our wrongdoing, all our unrighteousness, all our iniquities – for which he died on the cross.

He wore a crown of thorns so that we can receive a crown of goodness – every year for the rest of our lives! It is an ongoing action! What a wonderful team to play for – they receive the prize every year! How would you like to play for a team that wins every year, every league they play in?

No matter what you have had to face this year – God will find a way to turn it around for your benefit. He will find a way to glorify His own!

You share in a collective goodness!
When ‘towb’ is used as a noun it speaks of welfare, benefit and prosperity! It is used collectively as well. Because we belong to the body of Christ we share in the collective benefits or joint benefits of divine welfare! We are on Christ’s welfare programme: it will continually go well with us! Everything works together for our good – even our present suffering works an eternal weight of glory for us! There are those who have to go without things at the moment – but God is weighing up the eternal rewards for you! And in this life He crowns you with goodness! He satisfies your soul. It literally drips with His abundance! God is so good – He just cannot help Himself! He wants to display His goodness to you at the end of the year.

Taste and see that the Lord is good!
We need enlightened eyes of understanding to see just how good God is. We sometimes miss it because all we look at are the bad things that happen to us. We remember the worst times. Remember the best times of your year today and give thanks to God for His goodness. Let the goodness of God appear on your radar screen. Call up the goodness of God in your life.

God wants to honour you and justify you and glorify you – just like He did to His Son, Jesus Christ when He was on the earth. He glorified Him again and again – publicly! Even His greatest defeat on the cross became His greatest victory! Through the cross He saved mankind! Because He obeyed God to go through that terrible experience for our sake, God has also highly exalted Him and given Him a name that is above every other name that at His name every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord!

God will crown your year with goodness in such a way that even your enemies will have to admit that God is with you. You cannot crown yourself – God will do it on your behalf!

God’s goodness towards you is abundant!
The word ‘fatness’ is ‘deshen’ in Hebrew and it refers to fatness or abundance and also has the reference of the ashes of your enemy mixed with their fat being given to you…on the other hand it also shows that your ashes will be taken away – He will give you beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning; the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness – that is how He crowns your year with Goodness!

Today is a day of great rejoicing! Believe that this message has been sent from the heart of God for you – just you and that those who believe and trust in God share it with you: God crowns the year with goodness!

The devil will whisper negative things in your ear to make you doubt God’s goodness, but if you will break th