The Way (Part 1): How Good is Good Enough?

           

            How good is good enough? Lines are drawn early on. Athletes know them well. Line 1 – you are allowed to join the sport. Lines 2 through 6 – you make some level of a team (c, b, a, junior varsity, varsity – which might betray the size of school I grew up in). Line 7 – you play little more than a bench warmer. Line 8 – you get average playing time. Line 9 – you are a starter. Line 10 – you are the team’s MVP. Similar lines are drawn in nearly every area of life – from the bands, drama teams, student councils, and academics of teenage years to the careers, homemaking skills, parenting styles, and economic statuses of adulthood. We like knowing where the lines are drawn and what rewards we can receive for crossing them: recognition, influence, compensation, etc.   

            

            Too many individuals carry this thinking with them into the church.  We can get caught in the trap of viewing and treating people according to the “salvation scale” we have concocted in our heads.  The lead pastor of course is ultra-saved.  Then come the other pastors and staff, followed closely by the senior saints, home-schooled families, and families who serve in every ministry possible.  After that, the average, busy “lay” families, the singles, the college students, the “drink, but not unto drunkenness” crowd, and the church youth group take their place.  The edgy fringe families with tattoos, those with messy lives, the pastor’s rebellious kid, and the teenage hoodlums who don’t go to youth group fall in the “maybe they’re sort-of saved” group.  Next are the Chreasters (Christmas and Easter crowd) – we only see them a couple times a year, so they don’t even really count.  Then there’s the prodigals – who can’t possibly be saved and probably were never saved in the first place.  I mean, did you hear what they did?  And forget all the people who never go to church (who wouldn’t want the pressure of having another ladder to climb?). 

            By the way, I think Jesus weeps over the state of our hearts when we think this way (his followers included doctors, fishermen, prostitutes, and tax collectors, and he valued them all equally and treated them with respect even before they believed in Him), but that’s not what I want to discuss here.  The question I want to ask is this: where is the line?  Do we all have to be in vocational ministry to really be saved?  Is there any hope for us once we’ve crossed too many lines in the opposite direction?  Do we all have to look the same to believe the same way?  Are there really some people who are “more saved” than others?  Does God only love us once we have crossed a particular line?  Which line is it?  How good is good enough? 

            God’s Word makes the answer pretty clear.  The requirement for entrance into heaven and into the very presence of God is perfection.  Check out the following verses.

“For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; no evil dwells with You” (Psalm 5:4).  No evil can dwell with (i.e., live with) God.  None.  This does not just refer to murder and rape but to all sin, including gossip, gluttony, and lying.  Sin is anything that falls short of God’s perfection.  That even includes not doing what we know to be right (James 4:17).  Just one imperfection is enough to separate us from God (James2:10).    

Revelation 21:4 is often quoted and is talking about the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:1, 2) in the new heaven and earth: “and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”  What many people don’t realize is that this is not an all-inclusive promise.  Not everyone will get to experience this paradise.  Of this same place, it is also written: “and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it….” (Revelation21:27).

You can also look at 2 Peter 3:13 and Habakkuk 1:13 for more reading on this point, but the standard is clear.  There is one line for all, and that line is perfection.  Nothing less will do.  Logically, this makes sense.  Heaven cannot be a perfect place if even slightly imperfect people are allowed into it.  A perfect God cannot tolerate imperfection.  I know I am not perfect, and I don’t know anyone else who would claim to be.  This truth is the great equalizer.  No matter what our race, gender, age, economic status, Bible knowledge, or background, we all fall short of perfection.  Yet, this is God’s demand.  If this is so, who can possibly stand? 

To be continued…

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