Good enough?

In the news business, there are a few things that drive me nuts: horribly-written press releases, getting a “no comment” and friends and family members of a criminal who swear he or she was a good person.

Even if I wasn’t a Christian, I’d go nuts over this because the argument is, even though so and so was caught stealing or busted selling drugs; or, like the recent case in Huntington, a man with a slew of drinking and driving citations who drove while intoxicated and without a license in a vehicle that was illegally registered, crossed the center line and slammed into a vehicle. Not only did he die, but a 14-year-old in the other vehicle did as well.

His family’s response: he was a good person.

Recently, our church asked some questions to some students at Marshall about heaven and hell: if they believe in it and how to get there.

Most answers were chalked up to somehow doing more good than bad.

If that’s true, that means we’re somehow dependent upon our own abilities to do more good than bad or to avoid doing bad in some way.

That also means there must be some value to good and bad deeds. If you love your family, how much is that worth? Because Jesus reports in the gospels that even sinners and tax collectors love their own families.

Let’s just say you are charitable with your money. How much weight does that carry on God’s scale? What is a lie worth? Is it worse than murder?

Paul writes in Romans that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.”

What we find extensively in scripture is that God hates sin, all sin. He doesn’t somehow favor the man who only looked at pornography over the man who actually committed adultery.

Both have sinned against Him.

If you put your good deeds up against God’s glory, the scale will never tip in your favor. But, when you put your trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, the grace extended to you is eternal and satisfies the perfect standard of God.