Are you good enough?

This is the ad that the American Humanist Association will be displaying on buses across Washington D.C. this Christmas. What do you think when you read this ad? Do you agree or disagree with the message?


I have several friends that I know would wholeheartedly agree with the message. They are amazing people. They are good husbands/wives. They are always helping others out when they see a need. They are involved in their communities. They are all around good people. No one has anything bad to say about them. They don't weigh society down but instead build it up.

I had a conversation with one of these friends a few years ago. I don't remember how, but somehow we got on the topic of Heaven and Hell. He told me he was pretty sure that he'd be in Heaven after he died. When I asked him how he knew he replied, "I'm a pretty good person. I've never killed anyone or cheated on my wife. There are some crazy people out there and I know that I'm a lot better than them. I'm no saint, but I figure when God compares me with some of the other people in this world he'll have to let me in!"


I guess the big question is...who decides the standard for "good"? Many people say that as a society we just know what's right and what's wrong. I don't think we can set the standard for goodness by ourselves. Let's look at some history. I'll give you two names. Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden. When you read those names what do you think? Do you think, "They are pure evil!" I know I do! Why do we think they are evil? If you grew up as one of Bin Laden's children, do you think you would still believe he is evil? Or do you think you would see things from his perspective? In his eyes he is one of the most righteous men on earth! He is doing exactly what he believes Allah wants him to do! Hitler didn't see himself as an evil man either. In his eyes he was bettering society.


In American society there are many examples of different views of good. I'll use two of the "hot button" issues as examples. California just voted against homosexual marriage. There are two very passionate sides to this argument. One side believes homosexual marriage is good because it allows people to be who they want to be and to have all the legal rights of marriage. They believe homosexual marriage is good for society and see the prohibition of it as restricting a persons rights. The other side is against homosexual marriage. Why? Why don't they want everyone to be happy in their home/family life? They are against it for one reason...the Bible says it's wrong. I Corinthians 6:9 says, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders...will inherit the kingdom of God."

Abortion. Pro-choice advocates promote abortion. They feel that they are being compassionate to a young woman when she has an unwanted pregnancy. Their easy solution is abortion. This allows the young woman to get on with her life without an unwanted child. They also think it is beneficial to parents who find out their unborn baby is suffering from some kind of genetic defect. Pro-life advocates are against any and all abortions. Why? Because they know that God has said that murder is wrong (both in the Old and New Testament). They also know that He alone is the creator of life. Psalms 139:13 says, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." vs 16 "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Those are two pretty big issues that society battles over. If you don't believe that God's word is truth, you will probably side with the pro-choice/pro-homosexual marriage side because it is the side that seems the most compassionate and good. There are many other things in our daily life that are either good or bad. It is very easy to let myself think, "I've never murdered or stolen or committed adultery...I'm pretty good!" However, how many things have I done each and every day that are not good?

Here's an exercise for you. Take a small piece of paper and draw a circle. Use a pen and make a dot on there for every time you can remember having sinned (or done something "not good"). What does your paper look like? Are there more than 50 dots? More than 100 dots? More than 1000 dots? Do you want to know the truth? If you were being totally honest, your paper would be solid black. You shouldn't be able to see any white because of the number of dots. This is how God sees you. Did you know that he requires perfection to enter Heaven? You can NEVER achieve perfection in his sight. There will always be sins that you commit. Greed, lust, lies (or just "little fibs"), gossip (I'd like to meet someone who claims to NEVER have talked about someone else!), idol worship (no, you may not have a little statue that you pray to, but do you worship your money, your career, your car, you animals, your dedication to being more green than your friends?), and the list goes on and on.

Romans 3:10, 12b: "There is no one righteous, not even one...there is no one who does good, not even one."

Romans 3:23: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"

So then how does anyone get to Heaven since we are all wretched sinners in God's eyes? It's not based on your own merits or goodness. Instead we are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. He was our perfect sacrifice. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth...He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed."

John 3:16-18: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."