Bible Reading: Romans 3:1-12
Do you think that you are good enough to go to heaven? How good is “good enough”? Do you have to be kind five times a day? Ten? Do you have to give hundreds of dollars to charity?
Thousands? Do you have to give up everything and go live on a mountain? Just exactly what do you think being “good enough to go to heaven” means? How do you decide if someone else is “good enough”? To whom or what do you compare them?
As you can see, being “good enough,” by human standards is very subjective. There is no way to determine if any one person is “good enough.”
Romans 3:10 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one.” That means that God says that none of us is “good enough” to go to heaven. No matter how many nice things we do or how much money we give or how much we try to isolate ourselves from evil, we can never live a “good enough” life to allow us to go to heaven by God’s standards.
Don’t despair, though!
God has offered us the perfect solution to this problem!
God sent Jesus to be “good enough” for all of us. Jesus lived a perfectly good, sinless life. Then he died the punishment intended for the totally wicked. Three days later he rose from the dead. He did that for us – for you and me – so that we could go to heaven even though we aren’t “good enough.”
“All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:12
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to be “good enough” in my place.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.