"Good" People

I am going to (as I have started it) write a substantial post on the topic of "good" people, but I don't currently have time to finish it.

However, here are a few paragraphs from Ravi Zacharias' latest book "Beyond Opinion."

This part of the book was no doubt written in a Christian Apologetics book because of the widely held but fallacious belief that "good" people (as we understand "good") go to Heaven, and all that is required to go to Heaven is being a "good" person.

What Makes You Think You Are Good?

This is a very difficult and almost painful thing to say, but the simple truth is that there are no good people. I know that we often think of ourselves as being good people, especially when we compare ourselves to other people whom we do not like. Someone came to Jesus once and said, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 8:18). What he was saying was, "You're a good person. You're obviously going to heaven. What must I do? Tell me, good teacher, what are the good things that I must do so I can go too? How do I attain eternal life?" Jesus looked at him and said, "Why do you call me good?" And then he added, "No one is good but God alone." Think about this: if you have to be good to go to heaven and only God is good, who is going? God and . . . no one else. In other words, Jesus is saying "Your application to join the trinity has been reused."

Now, sometimes we find this type of statement offensive, but if you are reading this and you really believe that you're perfect, there's only one solution to that predicament: you need to get married. If you are married, then you need to start listening! We need to be honest with ourselves. We may try to be good, but we know that we are who Jesus said we are: sinners.
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This isn't a hard concept to grasp as soon as you realize that the standard is God, and only God is good, and thus we cannot be good because we are sinful.

And the words came from Jesus. This isn't man-made doctrine, this is Christ-given truth. We can't rely on believing that we are "good," and expect to walk through the Pearlie Gates.