If you have ever heard someone answer a bad day with “God is good,” you may have wondered whether the Bible really says that, or whether it is just something Christians say. It does say it. The statement appears in the Psalms, in the prophets, and in the words of Jesus, often in the same breath as mercy.
This page walks through 20 passages in the King James Version, grouped by what readers usually need: plain statements, promises for people who seek God, signs of His daily care, and honest words for the days when life falls apart. Each passage comes with who wrote it, what was going on, and one small step to try. The aim is simple. We want to show that goodness is not a slogan but something God has shown again and again.
Quick answer: Yes, the Bible says God is good. Psalm 25:8 states it plainly, “Good and upright is the LORD,” and Psalm 136:1 calls us to give thanks because “he is good.” Scripture means that God is morally perfect and kind toward people, which is why His goodness shows up in mercy, daily care, and the sending of Jesus.
Jump to: Does the Bible say it? · Plain statements · Those who seek Him · Good gifts · When things fall apart · Seen in Jesus · Naomi’s story · Misreadings · God is good and God is love · Children · Living it out · FAQs
Six Verses to Start With
- Psalm 136:1: Give thanks, because He is good and His mercy lasts.
- Psalm 25:8: God is good and upright, and He teaches sinners.
- Psalm 73:1: Honest doubts can end in a clear confession: God is good.
- Lamentations 3:25: Goodness meets those who wait for Him and seek Him.
- Matthew 7:11: The Father gives good things to those who ask.
- Habakkuk 3:17-18: Joy in God is possible even when everything else fails.
Key Takeaways
- The Bible states directly, and many times, that God is good.
- “God is good all the time” is a popular church saying, not a verse, though Scripture supports the idea behind it.
- Goodness is part of God’s nature, not a mood that rises and falls with our circumstances.
- Good does not mean pleasant, and it does not mean we always receive what we ask for.
- Jesus shows what God’s goodness looks like in a human life.
Does the Bible Actually Say “God Is Good”?
It does, and in many places. The Psalm writers, the prophets, and Jesus’ own followers all describe God as good, and they usually pair that word with mercy or truth. This is not buried in a footnote. It is one of the most repeated claims about God’s character.
What you will not find is the exact slogan “God is good all the time.” That line is a call-and-response that many churches use, and it is not a verse. It is, however, a fair summary of what Scripture teaches in passages like Psalm 136:1. When the Bible calls God good, it means He is morally perfect and kind toward people. His goodness belongs to who He is.
The sections below follow what readers most often need: plain statements, promises for those who seek Him, signs of daily care, honest words for painful days, and the way Jesus shows God’s goodness up close.
The Bible Says It Plainly
Some verses leave no room for guessing.
Psalm 25:8 (KJV)
“Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way.”
Context and meaning: David wrote this psalm in a time of trouble and asked God for guidance. Goodness and uprightness go together here, and the proof is that God teaches sinners rather than abandoning them.
Try this: Ask God today to show you one next step, and expect Him to answer kindly.
Prayer: Good Lord, teach me Your way.
Tag: guidance
Psalm 135:3 (KJV)
“Praise the LORD; for the LORD is good: sing praises unto his name; for it is pleasant.”
Context and meaning: This is a psalm of praise, meant for those who serve in the house of the LORD. Praise is given a reason: He is good. The word “pleasant” hints that praising Him is a delight, not a duty.
Try this: Sing or play a hymn you love while doing a household chore.
Prayer: I praise You, Lord, because You are good.
Tag: praise
1 Chronicles 16:34 (KJV)
“O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever.”
Context and meaning: David had just brought the ark of God to Jerusalem and appointed musicians to lead the nation in thanks. This line became a refrain for Israel. Notice the pairing: goodness and lasting mercy always travel together.
Try this: Finish the sentence “Thank you, God, because you are good, and today you gave me…”
Prayer: Thank you for mercy that does not run out.
Tag: thanksgiving
Jeremiah 33:11 (KJV)
“…Praise the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good; for his mercy endureth forever…”
Context and meaning: Jeremiah spoke these words while shut up in a prison courtyard (Jeremiah 33:1), as God promised to restore the land after exile. Even from a cell, the prophet was told that voices of joy would return. God’s goodness includes a future.
Try this: Name one thing that feels locked up in your life and ask God to make room for hope.
Prayer: Lord, bring joy back where it has gone quiet.
Tag: restoration, hope
Good to Those Who Seek Him
Goodness is not only a fact about God. It is something people are invited to meet.
Psalm 73:1 (KJV)
“Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.”
Context and meaning: Asaph nearly lost his faith while watching wicked people prosper. This opening line is the conclusion he reached after that struggle, and the word “truly” signals a settled mind. Honest doubt, brought to God, can end in trust.
Try this: Bring one honest doubt to God in prayer, without trying to tidy it up first.
Prayer: Lord, take my doubts and settle my heart.
Tag: doubt, trust
Lamentations 3:25 (KJV)
“The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.”
Context and meaning: The writer is grieving the destruction of Jerusalem, yet he says goodness belongs to those who wait and seek. In grief, waiting on God can look like simply continuing to reach toward Him.
Try this: Sit quietly for three minutes and tell God you are waiting for Him.
Prayer: I am waiting, Lord. Meet me here.
Tag: waiting, grief
Psalm 73:28 (KJV)
“But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.”
Context and meaning: This is the last verse of the same psalm. Here “good” describes what is good for us, and Asaph’s answer is simple: being near God. His struggle ends with a purpose, to tell what God has done.
Try this: Before reaching for your phone this morning, spend a minute near God in prayer.
Prayer: Draw me near to You, Lord.
Tag: nearness
Psalm 63:3 (KJV)
“Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.”
Context and meaning: David wrote this in the dry wilderness of Judah, according to the psalm’s heading. He says God’s steady love is better than life itself, and he praises even in an empty place.
Try this: Thank God for a dry season in which He still met you.
Prayer: Your love is better than life. Thank You.
Tag: dry seasons, love
Good Gifts for His Children
Jesus and the psalmists both describe God as a generous Father.
Matthew 7:11 (KJV)
“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”
Context and meaning: Jesus was teaching about prayer in the Sermon on the Mount. His argument moves from small to great: if imperfect parents give well, the perfect Father gives better. The “good things” are the ones the Father knows are excellent, which is not always the same as every request.
Try this: Make one request in prayer and add, “Give me what is superb.”
Prayer: Father, give me what You know is good.
Tag: prayer, provision
Psalm 84:11 (KJV)
“For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory; no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
Context and meaning: This is a pilgrim song of the sons of Korah, written by people longing to be in God’s house. The promise is best read as God giving what is perfect, as He defines it, to those whose lives are aimed at Him. It is not a blank check for every wish.
Try this: Ask what you most want, then ask whether it is a “good thing” in God’s eyes.
Prayer: Be my sun and shield today, Lord.
Tag: provision, protection
Psalm 107:9 (KJV)
“For he satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.”
Context and meaning: This line comes from a psalm about people rescued from hunger, danger, and distress. The “longing soul” points to deep need, not only physical hunger. God meets that need with goodness itself.
Try this: Name what you are starving for, and bring it to God before looking anywhere else.
Prayer: Satisfy my longing soul, Lord.
Tag: longing, satisfaction
Psalm 33:5 (KJV)
“He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.”
Context and meaning: This psalm of praise celebrates God’s word and His work in creation. Notice that goodness stands beside righteousness and justice. God’s goodness is not soft or careless; it comes with a love for what is right.
Try this: Look for one sign of goodness in the natural world today, and thank God for it.
Prayer: Thank you for filling the earth with Your goodness.
Tag: creation, justice
Good When Things Fall Apart
These verses do not call pain good. They place God’s goodness inside the pain.
Habakkuk 3:17-18 (KJV)
“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines… Yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will joy in the God of my salvation.”
Context and meaning: The prophet Habakkuk was waiting for an invasion that would strip the land of its crops and flocks.
Try this: Write your own “although” list, then finish it with a sentence that begins “Yet I will…”
Prayer: Though much is lost, Lord, You are still my joy.
Tag: loss, joy
Psalm 69:16 (KJV)
“Hear me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.”
Context and meaning: David wrote this when troubles felt like rising water (Psalm 69:1). He bases his plea on God’s character: because God’s love is good, he asks God to turn toward him. We can pray the same way.
Try this: Start one prayer today with the words, “Because You are good…”
Prayer: Because You are good, Lord, hear me.
Tag: prayer, distress
Psalm 109:21 (KJV)
“But do thou for me, O GOD the Lord, for thy name’s sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.”
Context and meaning: David was under attack from accusers. He does not argue that he deserves rescue. He asks for it because mercy is who God is, and he trusts God to act in line with His own name.
Try this: When you feel unseen, pray the phrase “for Your name’s sake” and rest in it.
Prayer: Act for Your name’s sake, merciful God.
Tag: rescue, mercy
Psalm 34:19 (KJV)
“Many are the afflictions of the righteous deliverer, but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.”
Context and meaning: David admits that good people suffer many afflictions. The promise is deliverance, not avoidance, and Christians understand that deliverance in more than one way, in this life and in the life to come. The verse is honest about pain and hopeful about God.
Try this: Tell one trusted person what you are facing, instead of carrying it alone.
Prayer: Deliver me, Lord, in Your time and Your way.
Tag: affliction, deliverance
Good to be seen in Jesus
The New Testament says God’s goodness has a face.
Acts 10:38 (KJV)
“How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him.”
Context and meaning: Peter summed up Jesus’ life this way while speaking to Cornelius and his household, who were not Jews. In one sentence, Jesus’ ministry is “doing good.” If you want to know what God’s goodness looks like, look at how Jesus treated people.
Try this: Do one quiet good deed today without announcing it.
Prayer: Jesus, make my hands useful for good.
Tag: Jesus, kindness
John 10:10 (KJV)
“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
Context and meaning: Jesus was teaching about Himself as the good shepherd (John 10). “More abundantly” means life in fullness, a rich life because it is lived with Him, not a promise of ease or wealth. The contrast is between those who take and the One who gives.
Try this: Ask what is stealing your peace this week, and invite Jesus into that exact place.
Prayer: Give me life with You, Good Shepherd.
Tag: life, shepherd
Luke 18:19 (KJV)
“And Jesus said unto him, ‘Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.”
Context and meaning: A ruler had just called Jesus “Good Master” (Luke 18:18). Many Christian readers take Jesus’ reply as an invitation to think about whom He really is, not as a denial that He is God. Either way, the verse says that perfect goodness belongs to God alone.
Try this: When you call something good this week, ask what standard you are using.
Prayer: Teach me to see goodness the way You do.
Tag: standard, Jesus
John 14:9 (KJV)
“…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father…”
Context and meaning: At the Last Supper, Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father. Jesus answered that seeing Him was seeing the Father. The compassion of Jesus, His healing and welcoming of outsiders, is a window into what God is like.
Try this: Read one Gospel story and ask, “What does this show me about God?”
Prayer: Jesus, show me the Father through You.
Tag: Jesus, revelation
Naomi: From “Call Me Mara” to a Restored Home
Naomi’s story shows how honest a person can be about pain and how God’s goodness can still be at work. In Ruth 1, a famine pushed her family to Moab. There, her husband and both sons died. When she returned to Bethlehem, she asked people not to call her Naomi, which means pleasant, but Mara, which means bitter: “for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me” (Ruth 1:20).
The story does not end there. Her daughter-in-law Ruth stayed with her, and through Boaz’s kindness Ruth married and had a son, Obed. The women of the town praised the LORD for not leaving Naomi without family (Ruth 4:14), and Obed became the grandfather of David (Ruth 4:17).
Three lessons stand out.
- Honest grief is allowed. Naomi spoke her bitterness aloud, and Scripture does not scold her for it.
- Goodness often arrives through ordinary faithfulness. Ruth’s loyalty and Boaz’s generosity were real people doing real kindness.
- Her story was larger than she could see. Ruth appears in the family line of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). Naomi could not know that when she said “Mara.”
Three Misreadings of “God Is Good”
It does not mean everything is pleasant. Habakkuk lists terrible losses, and Psalm 34:19 admits that afflictions are many. The Bible never asks us to call pain pleasant. It asks us to trust the One who is with us in it.
It does not mean we always get what we ask for. Matthew 7:11 promises “good things,” and the Father defines what is good. A loving parent sometimes says no, and so can God.
It does not mean God ignores sin. Psalm 25:8 says He teaches sinners, and Psalm 33:5 says He loves righteousness. His goodness includes justice, which is why He can forgive and still take wrongdoing seriously.
God Is Good and God Is Love
First John 4:8 says, “God is love.” Both statements describe the same God from different angles. One helpful way to see it is that love describes how God gives Himself to others, and goodness describes the perfection of His character. Together they answer two worries. A God who loved but was not good could not be trusted, and a God who was good but did not love might feel distant. The Bible holds the two together, as in Psalm 136:1, where “he is good” is followed by mercy that lasts.
The Old and New Testaments, Side by Side
| Theme | Old Testament | New Testament |
|---|---|---|
| God’s nature | Psalm 25:8: good and upright | Luke 18:19: none is good, but God |
| Asking and receiving | Psalm 84:11: no good thing withheld | Matthew 7:11: good things to those who ask |
| Mercy in action | Psalm 69:16: tender mercies | Acts 10:38: Jesus doing good and healing |
| Showing God’s heart | Psalm 33:5: earth full of goodness | John 14:9: seeing Jesus is seeing the Father |
| Hope after loss | Jeremiah 33:11: joy returns | John 10:10: life with the Shepherd |
Match Your Moment to a Verse
| Situation | Bible verse | Key lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Doubting God | Psalm 73:1 | Honest doubts can end in trust |
| Feeling dry or empty | Psalm 63:3 | His love is better than life |
| After a loss | Habakkuk 3:17-18 | Rejoice in God when other things fail |
| Waiting for an answer | Lamentations 3:25 | Goodness meets those who seek Him |
| Giving thanks | 1 Chronicles 16:34 | Pair thanks with His lasting mercy |
| Needing guidance | Psalm 25:8 | He teaches those who ask |
Teaching Children That God Is Good
Children learn this best when it is repeated in ordinary life. Deuteronomy 6:7 pictures parents talking about God while sitting at home, walking along the road, lying down, and getting up. A few simple ideas can help.
- Ask a thank-you question at dinner. “What good thing did God give us today?” builds the habit of noticing.
- Choose one short memory verse. Psalm 136:1 is easy to learn: “O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever.”
- Tell Bible stories of God’s help. Naomi’s and Ruth’s story works well for older children.
- Be honest on sad days. You can say, “it is unclear to me why this happened, but God is with us.”
A short family prayer (original, not Scripture): Thank You, God, that You are good. Thank You for our food, our family, and Your help today. Amen.
Simple Ways to Live It Out
Believing that God is good is one thing. Practicing it is where it grows. Try these four habits.
- Keep a short thanks list. Write one good thing each night. Over time, the list becomes a record of God’s care.
- Memorize a verse. Choose one from this page and repeat it on your commute or walk.
- Pray honestly. If goodness feels distant, say so. Many psalms do exactly that.
- Pass on kindness. Acts 10:38 shows Jesus “doing good.” Small acts of kindness reflect His character.
Reflection questions:
- Where have I noticed God’s goodness in the past month?
- Which painful season do I find hardest to connect with His goodness?
- Who could I treat with the kindness God has shown me?
A Short Prayer of Trust
This is an original prayer, not Scripture.
Father, thank You for being good. Thank You for being good when I can feel it and when I cannot. Help me to trust You in the quiet days and the hard ones. Forgive me for the times I doubted You, and teach me to see the kindness You have placed around me. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Questions Readers Ask
Where does the Bible say God is good?
The Bible says it directly in places like Psalm 25:8, Psalm 135:3, Psalm 136:1, and Lamentations 3:25. In the New Testament, Luke 18:19 says that only God is fully good, and Acts 10:38 describes Jesus as one who went about doing good.
Is “God is good all the time” in the Bible?
Not word for word. It is a popular call-and-response used in many churches. The idea behind it is supported by Scripture, such as Psalm 136:1 and passages that describe God’s unchanging character. When you quote it, it helps to know that it is a church saying, not a verse.
Is God good when bad things happen?
The Bible does not call suffering good, and it does not hide it. It does say that God is present in hardship (Psalm 34:19), that joy in Him is possible even in loss (Habakkuk 3:17-18), and that He can work through pain for good. If your pain feels too heavy, please also speak with a pastor, counselor, or trusted friend.
Who said “no one is good but God”?
Jesus said it. It appears in Luke 18:19, with a close parallel in Mark 10:18. Many Christian readers understand Jesus to be asking the man to think about who he was addressing, not denying that He is God. The saying underlines that perfect goodness belongs to God.
Is God good to everyone?
Scripture speaks of a general kindness toward all people, as when Jesus says God sends sun and rain on both the evil and the good (Matthew 5:45). It also speaks of a special nearness for those who seek Him (Lamentations 3:25). Both are part of the Bible’s picture.
What is the difference between “God is good” and “God is love”?
“God is good” describes the perfection of His character, while “God is love” (1 John 4:8) describes how He gives Himself to others. They are not rivals. Each helps explain why God can be trusted, and the Bible often places them side by side.
What is a short Bible verse that says God is good?
Psalm 25:8 is brief: “Good and upright is the LORD.” Psalm 136:1 is another short one to memorize: “O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good.” Either can be prayed in a single breath on a busy day.
How can I teach children that God is good?
Begin with repetition and examples. Ask what good thing God gave the family each day, learn a short verse like Psalm 136:1, and tell Bible stories of God’s help. On sad days, be honest and remind them that God is with you. Children trust what they see you practice.
Goodness You Can Lean On
The God is good Bible verses in this guide tell one steady story. God is good in His nature, good to those who seek Him, good in the gifts He gives, and good in Jesus, who showed what that goodness looks like. The same Bible admits that people grieve and lose and wait, and it never asks them to pretend otherwise. Read each verse in its setting, and let it become something you lean on instead of something you only admire. On the days you cannot see it, you can still trust the One who is good.
Emily Johnson creates approachable Bible content about Christian living, biblical meanings, prayer, Scripture, and spiritual encouragement, making complex biblical topics easier for everyday readers.
