Our Good is Never Good Enough

Even a pastor has to unwind every so often, and one thing I love to do is local theater. So when it was announced that Hillsdale Community Theater would be performing Miracle on 34th Street, I decided to try out. Auditions took place over two nights, and after Sunday night’s auditions, I was feeling great about my chances at a principle part. There weren't a lot of guys auditioning, and with my 10 plays worth of experience I felt looked like the savvy vet against a lot of newcomers.

Monday night I returned, to do some additional reading, maybe see the competition. Well I saw the competition and I no longer looked so shiny. My ten plays worth of experience didn't hold a lamp to the dozens and dozens these guys had. Their monologues were crisp, their reading on point. Suddenly, I am longer thinking about which lead part I will land, but wondering if I was good enough to even make the show.

This made me think a lot about something I read by Ray Comfort this week:

“A little girl was once looking at a sheep as it ate green grass. She thought to herself how nice and white the sheep looked against the green grass. Then it began to snow. The little girl then thought how dirty the sheep looked against the white snow. It was the same sheep, but with a different background. When we compare ourselves to the background of man’s standards, we come up reasonably clean. However, when we compare ourselves to the snow-white righteousness of the Law of God (the Ten Commandments), we see that “we are all as an unclean thing, and our righteous deeds are as filthy rags”” - (see Isaiah 64:6). From, The Evidence Bible.

You know sometimes when we work in the secular world, or live in a secular community it can be easy to look around and see how good we are, we don’t swear, download movies illegally or smack our wives. On top of that we attend church three out of every four Sundays, we help out at the local soup kitchen, and listen to almost only Christian music. Compared to the world, our lives may look shiny white. But God doesn't compare us to the world. Instead we are compared to his perfect law, found in the Ten Commandments, and once we have broken just one law, we are 100% guilty. James 2:10 tells us: “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”

We may look great when we stand next to the world, but when compared to God’s perfect standard, we look all dirty. None of us are good enough.

Lucky for us, although a director will never look at me and see Sly Stallone, if we have repented and turned our lives over to Him, when God sees us he can see the only one who meets his standards… Jesus.