How good is good enough?

On December 20th, 1986, the Los Angeles Times ran an article with this title: “72% Believe They Will Go to Heaven, Not Sure About Friends.” 

Why do we think we’ll make it to Heaven, but don’t think our friends will? Because we compare ourselves to other people instead of God. Compared to my neighbor, I’m pretty good! But even here we dupe ourselves.

We’ve all earned a PhD in self-deception. We hide our faults and highlight the faults of others. For instance, you see someone slip on an icy sidewalk and you think, “He should’ve been more careful! Doesn’t he know it’s winter?!” But if you slipped on that icy sidewalk you’d think, “Hey! Why didn’t someone put salt and sand on this?!”

Seeing God helps us see our true condition. If we compare ourselves to God, how do we stack up? Psalm 143:2 indicts all of us by saying, “Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.”

Unless God clothes us in the righteousness of another, we cannot stand before him. Who is that other? The Lord Jesus Christ. Hear the good news of 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Christ is our only hope! Don’t make the mistake of thinking your good works will make your right with God. They won’t! To God, our good works stink like a filthy garment (Isa 64:6). We cannot do enough to be enough before God. In Jesus alone we find shelter from the storm of God’s wrath. So, “Cast your deadly doing down; Down at Jesus’ feet; Stand in him, in him alone; Gloriously complete.”