How Good?



How good does one have to be to get to heaven? Will God accept sincerity? Will God accept you if you do the best you can and live a good life? Can you get to heaven if, from this day forward, you serve the Lord? Anyone who knows anything about God and His Word knows the answer to these questions must be AN EMPHATIC NO (see Romans 3:20-28)! It is not possible for any man to do or think anything that is good or acceptable before God (Isaiah 64:6). God cannot and will not accept anything less than WHAT HE IS, which is absolute perfection. He says in Leviticus 22:21, "It shall be PERFECT to be accepted." In order to get to heaven by our works, we must be as good as God, perfect in all things - - perfect in heart, perfect in thought, perfect in works, PERFECTLY HOLY!

Is there, therefore, no hope? Must we all perish forever? NO! Blessed be the Lord, our God! In Christ He has found a way to be both just and Justifier; He has found a way to make fallen, sinful people like us perfect, perfectly holy and perfectly accepted. Now this perfection is not of us, in us, nor through us, nor the result of anything we do or have done. It is entirely the work of God’s free grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. God has taken Christ’s perfect righteousness and imputed it to us, making us to be the very righteousness of God in Him (Romans 4:6). The penalty against sin was paid in full by the doing, suffering, and dying of our Lord Jesus Christ as the sinner’s Substitute (2 Corinthians 5:21).


-Gospel report by preacher Scott Richardson


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