Is Good - Good Enough? Part 1 of 2

Since it is football season, I can’t resist the temptation to use a quote from my favorite college football coach - quite a “Smart” guy. Ha.

When asked about his team’s recent performance, he responded:

It was good, but good is not going to be good enough.”

Those words really struck me. I can certainly see where they might be effective for motivating a football team to reach higher heights, but what if those words were directed towards us with regard to how well we are living our lives? Sort of like a “how are we doing so far?” grade. That might get kind of interesting…

We do live in a performance based society - school, sports, work etc… Accordingly, we are accustomed “keeping score” in these areas of our lives and this certainly isn’t a bad thing. It becomes a good motivator as we try to reach the best version of ourselves.

Some religions are performance based as well - the better person that you are, the better chance you have to fare well in the life beyond. In the Christian faith, the Bible powerfully speaks directly to the issue of “performance:”

Romans 3:10-12 There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.

Ouch. So much for feeling good about ourselves by how great of a person that we think we might be. Truly digesting what this passage is saying is a very humbling experience but also very important as we mature in our walk with the Lord.

Gratefully, our Christian faith is not based on our “performance” in this life. A critical truth that we must all remember is this:

God doesn’t love us because we are good, He loves us because He is good.

By putting our faith in Christ, we receive the “imputed righteousness” of Christ. This theological term means that, as believers, we are granted the holiness and righteousness of Christ. This is in spite of the fact that “none are good,” as pointed out in the verses from Romans above. Simply put, His righteousness becomes our righteousness and we are blessed with this amazing gift so that don’t have to stand on our own record.

Is our good, good enough? No. But His is and that is the power of the Gospel.

Stay hungry,

Big E