AM I GOOD ENOUGH FOR GOD?

Many people believe they will go to Heaven because they have endeavored to live good, moral lives. People, indeed, perform many good deeds. But these acts are never the reason that God welcomes someone into Heaven.

This philosophy underscores the difference between religion and a relationship with God.

Religion is spelled D-O.

In religion, we try to do enough good things to please God, earn His forgiveness and gain entrance into Heaven. This may include giving to charity, going to church or whatever we feel makes us moral.

However, there are several problems with this approach:
1. When can we know that we have done enough good deeds to please God?
2. Who is counting? Us? A minister? God? Our spouse?
3. This attitude can either lead to self-righteousness (“I’m a good person because I’m better than Steve over there”) or despair (“I’ll never make the cut, I’m just not good enough, so why bother?”).
4. The Bible says that we can never do enough.

The Bible, in Romans 3:23, says: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

It’s not that the good things we’ve done aren’t good – they are. However, God is saying that because we have all sinned, we have fallen short of His high standard. The good we have done does not erase or outweigh our moral failures.

While some have sinned more than others, no one can say he has lived a good life, because our lives are stained with sin. Even our acts of charity are sometimes tainted by wrong motives.

An analogy is that of swimming the Atlantic. A healthy athlete may get further than a middle-aged salesman, but both of them will perish before they reach Europe. One person may be more moral than another, but both of have fallen short of God’s standard of perfection. This is because all of us have sinned.

A judge is not interested in how many laws we’ve kept, but if we’ve broken laws. God sees that we have sinned, and this sin has separated us from Him.

It’s like bankruptcy. In this case, it’s spiritual bankruptcy before God. We want our good deeds to pay our way into right standing with Him. But God says these deeds are not a valid currency because we’re in a condition of moral bankruptcy.

The word sin in the Bible literally means “missing the mark.” A visual analogy is that of an archer aiming for the bull’s eye of a target. We try our best, but our efforts keep missing the standard of behavior that God accepts.

“For no one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what His law commands. For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying it.” – Romans 3:20, The Bible

If we believe that God will accept us because we’ve lived a good life, we’ll fall short every time.

“Christians ... believe the life of Jesus matters because, as God in human form, He lived a perfect life and gave us the best picture of how life ought to be lived. This is important because, without something to compare ourselves to, we have no idea whether our lives are being lived the way they were meant to be lived. … We tend to look at our many faults and say, ‘That’s just human.’ A man gets drunk, a woman has an affair, a child tortures an animal, a nation goes to war – that’s just the human life. Jesus put a stop to such talk. By exemplifying what we ought to be like, He showed who we were meant to be and how far we miss the mark.” – James White, “A Search for the Spiritual”

Christianity is spelled D-O-N-E.
We can’t earn God’s favor. The good news is that Christ has made a way for us by living a perfect life that we could never live, and by dying on the cross to pay for our sins. He has DONE the work, and now freely offers forgiveness to all who will humbly accept it.

“Christ also suffered when He died for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but He died for sinners that He might bring us safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but He was raised to life in the Spirit.” – 1 Peter 3:18, the Bible

Christ did the work for us. He could pay the penalty for our sin because He was perfect. He, not us, is the only one who could bring us safely home to God.

God is asking us to get off the treadmill of performance and fear. He wants us to have a healthy motivation to serve Him, not a fear of possible punishment. God’s love, evidenced in Christ’s death, is our motivation to serve Him.

He also wants us to set aside our own self-righteousness. We may have been clinging to it for years, citing our church attendance or the things that we haven’t done (rape, murder, child abuse). These things won’t cut it with God. That’s why He sent His Son Jesus.

However, it’s not enough to know these facts. We must act on them by personally asking God for His forgiveness and leadership in our lives.

“Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” — John 1:12, The Bible

God is asking us to believe in Jesus and what He has done for humanity. He wants us to agree intellectually:
1. That all of us have sinned
2. That we can never do enough good to please Him
3. That the result of our sin is eternal separation from God
4. That God intervened and sent His son Jesus to pay for our sins

But God is also asking us to respond to this information. He wants us to acknowledge our need of His forgiveness. God wants us to thank Him for the work that He has done for us in sending His Son to die for our wrongs.

God wants us to invite Him into our lives to begin a relationship with Him as our friend and leader.

What does this response to God look like? Each person’s conversation with God will be unique.

Following is an example to guide you: “God, thank you for creating me and for loving me. I realize I’ve sinned against you, and that because of this, I deserve eternal separation from you in Hell. I believe that you sent Jesus to die in my place so that I can have eternal life and a fresh start with you. I believe that Jesus died and rose again for me. I ask for your forgiveness. I ask for your friendship, and I ask you to be the new leader of my life.”

Is there any reason you can’t begin relying on God today?

Questions? Please contact us.

Common Questions
How can I find God?
What does it mean to be a Christian?
Am I good enough for God?
Will I go to Heaven?
Why should I believe in God?
Who was Jesus?
What about Christians who are hypocrites?
What makes Christianity so special? What about other religions?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why should I trust the Bible?
Do faith and science conflict?