How Good Is Good Enough?

Good News – January 2025 – Grace & Truth Magazine

How Good Is Good Enough?

If 99.9% were good enough, then according to recent data

• 49 failed commercial plane landings will occur today.
• 341 babies will be given to the wrong parents today.
• 2,000 emails will be delivered to the wrong address this second.
• 7,000,000 hearts will stop beating in the next minute.

A measure of 99.9% would sound incredibly good for a baseball batting percentage or a soccer winning percentage but would be pretty awful in other fields. So how good is good enough? Well, it depends on the circumstances and how important the issues are, doesn’t it? It also depends on who sets the standards for performance. You might think 50% on-time arrival to work was plenty good enough, but if your boss disagreed, you would be in trouble.

Good Enough For Heaven?
So how good is good enough for heaven, and who decides? We humans often think we do. We are likely to look around and find people worse than ourselves and tag them with the “wicked” label. Someone who has only gotten one parking ticket may consider repeat, violent criminals to be far more deserving of punishment. Violent criminals often have their own standards. They are likely to look down on the child abusers. Some, feeling charitable and loving, suggest that anyone experiencing remorse should be given a second, third or fourth chance. But virtually everyone has some kind of bottom line.

What Does God Say?
God has set the standard for heaven. It is called “the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Anything that could detract from His glory, mar His home, deface His image, or introduce rebellion must be kept out. In other words, His standard is perfection. But nobody could meet that, could they? Only one person has, the Lord Jesus Christ. He “did no sin” (1 Pet. 2:22 KJV). “In Him is no sin” (1 Jn. 3:5). He “knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). The rest of us have failed miserably – “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23). We deserve to be barred from God’s home. Beyond that, we deserve just judgment for the sin we have committed.

How Can Anyone Approach A Perfect God?
Only through the perfection of the one perfect Man, Christ Jesus, can anyone approach God. He offers salvation to all through the blood He shed on Calvary’s cross. He suffered wrath against sin from a holy God so we could come to God through Him. He “now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Repent means to rethink and drop our foolish thoughts about what God could accept and to receive what He says humbly. Then we discover that “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Will you receive Him as your Savior and righteousness today? We can tell you more.

Used by permission from another ministry.