Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. Romans 3:20

Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. Romans 3:20

Ask 7 out of 10 people on the street in America what it takes to be saved or what it takes to go to heaven. The response will likely be something like, "I don't know, just be a good person I guess." Sad thing is 3 out of the 7 of those people will be a self-proclaimed Christian.

I heard someone say once, "Heaven is not filled with good people. It's filled with saved people."

When we say that we are a pretty "good person", we assume we are able to be good by ourselves ... on our own steam. We believe that if we just do a few nice things (or even LOTS of nice things), that it will make up for all of our failures both in the past and coming up in the future. But here's the rub - we aren't graded on a bell curve. It's pass/fail. Either we were perfectly righteous and holy as God is and as Christ was while here on Earth, or we weren't. Unfortunately, that's the difference between spending eternity in Heaven or in Hell.

There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Romans 3:11-12

This sounds pretty hopeless. If we can't be perfect then we're going to hell? The blunt answer is yes.

Oh, but God made a way. THAT'S the good news.  THAT'S the Gospel!

How do we escape this conundrum?
Believe in Him. Put your faith in Him. Make Him your Lord and Savior, and when God looks on you he will see Christ, the righteous one, the perfect one. Through Christ you are made perfect, not through what you have done or can do, but through what He did for you.

But if you truly believe that you're a good person on your own, and that you don't sin, 1) you are delusional (as well as wrong) and 2) you will not be aware that you need to be saved.

"... through the law we become conscious of sin."

The reason God gave the Israelites the law was to make them aware of their sinful nature. He gave us the law to make us aware of our sinful nature, so that we would look to Him for our righteousness, not to ourselves.

We cannot be good on our own. But that's good news. He has made a way for us to have both the most fulfilling and joyful life possible, have purpose, and - most importantly - to spend eternity with Him.

"This is Amazing Grace. This is unfailing love. That He would take MY place. That He would bear MY cross. He laid down His life, so I could be set free. Jesus I sing for all that You've done for me."
-- Phil Wickham, This is Amazing Grace