Are You Good Enough?

Are You Good Enough?

“You have to be very, very good to go to heaven,” a young girl named Ruby once told an older friend. “Are you that good?” her friend asked. “No, I guess not,” she replied honestly.

Over 1900 years ago, the apostle Paul (who wrote 13 books of the Bible) said that nothing good lived in him (Romans 7:18). Could he have been that bad?

Are you good enough to get to heaven? Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything, disobeyed your parents or said bad things about someone? If you have, then you are not very good either.

In fact, according to God’s book, the Bible, none of us is good enough to get to heaven by himself: “There is none who does good, no, not one … for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:12, 23).

God is not saying that we cannot do some good things. But He is saying that we all do bad things called sins, and they will keep us out of heaven.

“Then how can we ever get to heaven?”

Some people think that when we do something good, it erases the bad things we did. But sin doesn’t go away that easily. God describes sin as a dirty spot in a piece of cloth—like paint on your clothes—that just won’t go away, no matter how many times you wash it.

When Ruby heard this, she asked a very important question: “Then how can we ever get to heaven?”

The Bible has the answer: “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Jesus shed His blood and died for our sins so that they could be washed away. That was the hardest job anyone ever did. Would you be willing to suffer for the bad things others did? Like me, you would probably say, “No way! Let them suffer for their own sins. They deserve what they get.”

Want some good news? God never said that about us! Instead, the Bible tells us: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

When Ruby heard how simple it was to get ready for heaven—and she really wanted to go to heaven—she bowed her head and confessed her sins, asking Jesus Christ to be her Savior.

How about you? The Bible warns us that if we won’t trust Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we will die in our sins and end up in hell. What a terrible way to die! What a terrible place to go! But it doesn’t have to be that way. Why not do what Ruby did? Why not do it now?

– S. Hadley

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