The Fatal Error






The vast majority of people who are asked something about eternity, heaven, God—(higher power) have the following kind of response/reasoning.
“I’m a good person—and that goodness—gives me favour with ‘god.’”  This goodness is based on comparison. The idea is to look around and find someone more evil.  That other person’s evilness is the base of your personal goodness.  This personal goodness then gives you credibility in the sight of ‘god’ and will give you a free ticket to heaven/eternity.

Here is the fatal error in that thinking:

1.  What if goodness is not based on ‘law keeping’?  What I mean is this:  what if being good isn’t so much what you do, but in actuality is what you intrinsically are?

2.  What good are ‘rules’ if being good isn’t about actions?  The Bible tells us the following: 
Romans 3:19, 20
“19 Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to bring the entire world into judgment before God.
20 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.”

So, keeping rules simply proves you are guilty.  The rules are designed to prove you are guilty.  The rules prove that you are NOT good—no matter how hard you try.  You are not good, because you break the rules! The rules are not given to prove you are good—because you aren’t!

3.  Goodness is—according to the Bible—a gift given through or by belief!
Romans 3:21-26
“21 But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight--not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago.
22 We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.
23 For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
24 Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins.
25 For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times.
26 And he is entirely fair and just in this present time when he declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus.”
——


No one can, by rule keeping, prove themselves good.  Goodness is a gift given by belief in Jesus.


Don’t make the fatal error in thinking your actions are good enough —they are not!  Goodness is a gift you can receive.

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