The world is filled with good people. It seems every time you get on the Internet, a new story is circulating about someone rescuing someone from something, or someone paying for someone’s something, or someone standing up for someone. There are so many heart-wrenching, aww-inducing stories nowadays, and it’s because the world is filled with good people. People who genuinely care about people. People who can’t stand to see others hurting. People who give their hard-earned money to the poor or to charities that will help end childhood cancer. I’m thankful that there are people out there whose hearts are touched with other people’s needs.
The problem is, being a good person is too romanticized in our culture. Being a ‘good’ person is the ideal. As long as society sees us as a good person (or the internet makes us out to be a good person), then we’ve arrived! Regardless of what the rest of our life looks like, as long as we’re a ‘good person’, then we’re ok. But that false sense of security is exactly why there’s a problem with being good.
In Acts 10, there was a good man by the name of Cornelius. Acts 10:2 describes him as “a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always.” To us, Cornelius seems like the standard of good person-ness, right? If we could all just be a little more like Cornelius, the world would be a better place, right?
To an extent, I guess that’s true. We do all need to be devout. To fear God. To give generously and pray always. But the problem with the state of Cornelius in Acts 10:2 is that he wasn’t saved. Despite all of his good qualities, he wasn’t on his way to heaven. It isn’t until verse 48, after a lot of teaching and a lot of miraculous things have happened (so Peter can see that Gentiles should be saved, too) that Cornelius is baptized and thus saved from his sins.
It seems clear from this text that being a good person and being a saved person are two completely different things. Are all saved people good people? To an extent. In order to be faithful to God, you have to be a person who is about His business, and His business is seeking and saving the lost (Luke 19:10) and helping those in need (James 1:27, 1 John 3:17). Still, with all the good works we do, we could never be good enough to deserve heaven. Thanks be to God for His grace!! Now, the opposite question: are all good people saved people? Cornelius is a great example of the fact that no, not all good people are saved.
God WANTS all men to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). God wants those who have already been seeking to be moral and upright, but He also wants those who have in no way, shape, or form been acting like a good person. He wants the murderers, the hypocrites, the adulterers and the thieves. God wants the well-meaning and the chaos-bringing to be saved. Regardless of past sins, regardless of how far or how long gone you’ve been, God wants you to be saved. No matter where you are…whether you’re a pretty good person or a convicted felon, without the blood of Jesus applied to your soul you aren’t a saved person, and God wants that to be changed.
Don’t let the world fool you: being good isn’t good enough. None of us could ever be good enough to go to heaven; to earn a spot there. Jesus is the only man to have ever walked this earth Who was perfect, and He allowed Himself to go to the cross so that all of the rest of us —the imperfect — could be saved. Even if you think you’re pretty good. Even if you pray and give to the poor and are devout in your service to God. Unless you have submitted to the Lord’s terms for salvation, you’re lost. Lost, but not without the hope of heaven, because Jesus died for YOU so that you could turn from your old ways and follow His way.
Don’t let good be good enough. Make sure of your salvation. Grab hold of eternal life, which is made possible through Jesus Christ. Seek Him, submit to Him, and follow Him.
