When Good Isn't Good Enough

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That’s such a good movie! That restaurant serves incredibly good food! If you want a really good cup of coffee you have to try this coffee shop! We use the word ‘good’ to describe so many things. When we have children it becomes a directive we give them from a very young age – to behave well. ‘Be a good boy. Be a good girl.’

Even God used that description…as He created every living thing. Genesis chapter 1 records that “God saw that it was good.” When He created Adam and gave him directions about each of those living things, verse 31 wraps up chapter 1 with this, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”

Then sin entered the world and we have struggled to be good enough ever since. Think of the very best person you know or have known about. It could be your neighbor, your friend, your parent or your pastor…none are good enough for God! To be restored to relationship with God requires a goodness that we cannot attain by ourselves. Even Billy Graham and Mother Theresa, as good as they were, and as much good as they did in this world for others, were not good enough to stand in the presence of Almighty God on their own merit.

No matter how good we try to live – sin, the very nature of sin that we are born into, leaves us in a state of ‘not good enough’. But there is such good news. The Good News of the Gospel is that God’s Holy Son, Jesus, was born and grew up, perfect, blameless and He gave His life, conquering sin and death as He rose again. It is because of HIS goodness that we can be good enough to have a relationship with God.

On our own we could never be good enough. But we are not alone. When Jesus is our Savior there is no more striving to be good. 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV) reveals that “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” And THAT, my friend, is more than good enough!

Read more devotions written by Denise Harper at Treasured Inside