Matthew West is kicking off the new year with a message that never gets old: “Good enough” is a myth. We don’t have to “be good” to earn God’s love. We’re loved simply because God is good. His latest song, “Good” — which he wrote with longtime collaborator AJ Pruis — expounds on this premise.
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“‘Good’ is about my lifelong journey to understand God’s grace,” the award-winning lyricist says. “I spent a long time treating grace like a ladder I had to climb — if I did enough good things, then I’d be worthy of God’s love. But He keeps showing me that grace isn’t a reward or something I have to earn, it’s a gift freely given. That powerful truth did more than inspire this song, it has changed my life.”
As a preacher’s kid, West admits he felt a lot of pressure to be “good” growing up in a suburb of Chicago. As an adult, that pressure continued on a different level as his platform expanded, first, as a songwriter and then, eventually, as a Christian recording artist. Yet, in his quest to do all the right things and obey all the rules, West found himself falling short again and again. His humanity frustrated him.
The longer he’s walked with Jesus, however, the more West has discovered that God isn’t tallying up our good deeds and weighing them against our bad ones. He simply loves us like a father loves his children — unconditionally.
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The powerful message behind “Good” is deeply relatable, and fans are already resonating with the acoustic-grounded single. West has been sharing the campy original in cities across the country on Winter Jam, which continues through the end of March. His oldest daughter, Lulu, has been traveling with him and harmonizing with her dad on the track.
New music isn’t the only thing West is launching to kickstart 2026. His next book, “Don’t Stop Praying” — titled after his most recent studio album — releases Feb. 3.
