Have you ever thought that you were a good person? How good are you really? Are you righteous? Is being good the same thing as being righteous? Does it matter?
If you are not good and you are not righteous, can you ever attain it? If you are not saved, do you have to get good enough? What is good enough?
We like to compare ourselves to the innocence of a child. If we are doing right according to what we think is right or as best as we can determine, then we think we are innocent. If we are innocent, we must be good. If we are good, we must be righteous.
Nice thought, but that is NOT what God’s Word says.
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Isaiah 64:6
Our righteousness is completely inadequate. All of our righteousness bundled up together just does not make the grade.
What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Romans 3:9-12
We are not righteous, and we don’t do good either. What’s more, the phrase “become unprofitable” as noted in Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible and confirmed by Strong’s Greek and Hebrew Dictionaries means render useless and spoil. If you’ve not heard that before, it kind of sheds a new light on it that our very best is spoil.
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:5-10
LIFE APPLICATION
Today’s challenge is to repent, and then share Jesus with a lost person today. If you are counting on yourself, you are counting on the wrong thing to save you. There is no such thing as being good enough to get saved. Your goodness and your righteousness is spoil and like filthy rags. The same goes for all of us, but there is a way. God provided us with a Savior – Jesus Christ. As it says in 1 John 1, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”