“Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph. He was a member of the Jewish high council, but he had not agreed with the decision and actions of the other religious leaders. He was from the town of Arimathea in Judea, and he was waiting for the Kingdom of God to come.” (Luke 23:50-51 NLT)
Having shared the plan of salvation – how to become a Jesus follower, with many people across the years, it’s not uncommon for me to ask someone: “If you were to die tonight and stand before a holy God and He were to ask you: ‘Why should I allow you to enter My perfect heaven?’ what would you say?” One of the most common answers is: “Because I’m a good person!” And, in many cases, I would have to agree, but our goodness isn’t the qualification God requires for us to enter heaven.
In other scenarios, people have asked me why God allows good people to go to hell? And while I understand theologically what the answer is, from a human standpoint sometimes it still doesn’t feel right. I have personally loved people and walked with them closely knowing they’d rejected the Lord time and time again and knowing when they closed their eyes in death, they wouldn’t be in heaven.
Should I have tried harder? Made a better argument? Prayed more intentionally or passionately? Ultimately, we have to understand that sometimes people who are “good” from all outward appearances are lost simply because they’re trusting their own goodness to get them to heaven, and that’s the worst kind of sin! Self-righteousness was the critical issue with the Pharisees that blinded them from knowing and receiving Jesus as Lord. He didn’t fit their mold, and they couldn’t believe they weren’t good enough as they were.
Many had memorized the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and knew the hundreds of Jewish laws by heart. They knew about goodness, but they still found ways to cheat widows out of their property and withhold money that rightfully should have been used for the care of their elderly parents. They were very religious, but far from righteous.
Here’s the bottom line: if anyone but Jesus was good enough to pay the penalty for sin, He wouldn’t have had to live, suffer, and die in our place, but the truth is, He is the ONLY ONE who lived a perfect, sinless life that qualified Him alone to become the Lamb of God who could take away the sin of the world.
There’s a sense in which the vilest sin that any of us can commit is thinking our life equals the sinless and perfect life of Jesus; that our good works could somehow qualify us to enter a perfect heaven; that our sin-laden, imperfect attempts to meet the qualifications of heaven could possibly be good enough to meet God’s holy standards.
The Bible is clear in Romans 3:10: “No one is righteous – not even one.” Only Jesus, God poured into human flesh, can qualify as Savior, Master, Lord of all mankind. Only He is the pathway to heaven and only He has the words of eternal life. Do you know Him? Please, by an act of God’s Spirit, allow Him to help you get over yourself and realize you’re not nearly as good as you think you are. If you believe for an instant that you’re good enough to enter heaven without the saving virtue of Jesus filling and enabling you, you’re going to spend an eternity in hell regretting it.
Please don’t let that happen! Please tap on anewstory.com and let Ron Hutchcraft walk you through a simple, straightforward explanation as to why you need a Savior, then commit your life to Him today!
Blessings, Ed
Walking With Jesus 