Bible Thoughts With Will Brown

Photo By Rita Morais

Have you ever heard a person say, well I am a good person? This statement is made by many people when they are getting arrested for committing a criminal act or most people basically believe that about themselves (Romans 10:3). Did someone else tell you that you are a good person? The real question that should be asked is, good according to who?  “And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23). Jesus is the speaker in that passage, and he makes the argument that not everyone that claims to be good or religious will inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Why? The answer is God’s standard of judgment of a person. “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24). The scary thing is that many people are good by their own standard but in reality, they are attempting to serve two masters, self and God. Another scary thing is that most people Christian or not serve, (money) paper, pleasure, or a world philosophy. “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). The best person you know will be compared to Jesus. You may think you are good but, you are compared to Jesus the Son of the Living God.

God’s standard is not a measure of a degree of goodness. His standard is good or evil there is no middle ground. The truth is that many people think being good and being righteous are the same thing. God is the determiner of what is truly good and what is righteous. God will not consider anyone righteous or good without Jesus (Romans 5:10).

How do we accomplish good according to God and support righteousness?

“But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:20–24).