Are we good enough for God?

In this world, where seemingly everything is measured by works, we invariably also would tend to fall into the pattern of being "doing" Christians instead of "being" Christians.

Oftentimes, a sense of guilt and condemnation makes us feel as if we're not good enough for God and hence we try our very best to work hard at becoming a so-called "good" Christian.

We pack our days with cellgroup meetings, church work, volunteer services, evangelistic rallies, healing rallies, services, sermons, DVDs, bible studies, Christian books, prayer meetings etc --- all the God-related things but we forget about the most important person: God.

If God had judged us based on our works or anything in us, we would all have failed miserably and be condemned because we are all sinners. (Romans 3:9-18) So there is no aspect of us that merits our salvation, only God's grace.

In other words, it means also that God in His grace and mercy has accepted us, warts and all, because we have repented of our sins, have asked Him to forgive us and confessed with our mouths that He is our Lord and Saviour.

In His sight, we're spotless because we have been washed by the blood of the Lamb and when He sees us, He sees Christ, who is also our advocate. (Romans 3:21-26, 1 John 2:1-2).

This is a truth that we must all hold very closely to our hearts and to our minds because the devil will always come and whisper in our ears, saying: "Are you sure you're good enough for God?" or "I think you need to work harder for Him or He may not accept you." or "You've done so many sinful things, are you sure God has forgiven all of that?" or "Oh dear, there you sin again, my goodness --- I think God has given up on you already", "You can never escape from your past" and so on.

The Bible says in James 4:7-8: Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

So whenever one gets these thoughts, it's time to bring out the Bible to read the appropriate verses (better still, memorise them) and destroy/eradicate/vanquish/stamp out/kill these false thoughts (yeah, using many verbs to signal the seriousness of the threat because the mind is always the battleground), and build up our faith.

On a related point, we need to be careful of doing so many things for Christ that in the end, we end up missing the main point - having a relationship with Him first before all else.

It is worth reading the account of Mary and Martha and their different responses to Christ when He came into their home, in Luke 10:38-42

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.^[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

In the Lord's answer, we see what Christ places the highest importance on. He commends Mary for choosing the one thing that is needed, the one thing that is better --- sitting by His feet and listening to His word in His presence.

Her attitude is in stark contrast to that of Martha, who is distracted by the preparations and whose care and work would have been suitable in another season and another place. At that time, what was needed of Martha was simply what Mary had done - to leave the things of the world and to just sit by Jesus' feet, to commune with Him.