Minister of students, Meadow Brook Baptist Church, Birmingham
How good is good enough? This is a question many people often ask. On our own we try to be good people and do the right thing and in the end many people simply hope that their good works will outweigh their bad ones, that the scales will shift in their favor. All will be well. Then they will go to heaven with all the other people who tried their best.
The reality, however, is that our goodness only looks good in comparison to other people. We think we are doing alright because we can find someone worse than us yet we are looking at the wrong standard. Compared to a perfect and holy God even our best days no longer look so good.
In Romans 3:23 the Bible clearly explains that our version of good doesn’t measure up. The text says: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” A great chasm exists between God’s perfection and our attempts at good, yet the great hope that we have is that the story does not end with this verse. If the story ended here we would be utterly lost and find ourselves standing hopeless and exposed as frauds on judgment day. Before we understand the greatness of what Jesus has done for us at the cross we must grasp the greatness of our need.
Our need is met with great hope because of Jesus, the perfect Savior who took our place. Romans 3:24 goes on to speak of this hope by stating: “and all are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The hope is a free gift of redemption that Jesus bought for you at the cross. The perfect One took your failed attempts to be perfect upon Himself. He paid the punishment for your imperfection and now He offers you His clean slate. Because of Jesus you can be good enough and your eternity can be secure. You simply have to take that gift by surrendering by faith to Jesus as your Savior and Lord.
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