Why You'll Never Be "Good Enough" (And Why That's Actually Good News)

right . It doesn't take long , if you start reading through the New Testament , for you to come across a group called the Pharisees . Now , the Pharisees were the Jewish leaders and teachers of the law .

They are the ones who took the commands that God had given back in the first five books of the Bible and they interpreted them so that , hopefully , the people of Israel could follow them properly . There were 613 laws in the Old Testament and everyone was expected to obey each and every one of these

laws . There are some really strange laws within this group , and let me just share some of those with you . Do you know the Jewish law permits only 39 steps on the Sabbath ?

There's also a law stating that you can't carry a burden on the Sabbath , and there's also laws defining what a burden is , such as food equal in weight to a dried fig , or enough wine for mixing in a goblet milk , enough for one swallow honey enough to put on a wound . Oil , enough to anoint a small area , water enough to moisten an eye salve .

Water enough to moisten an eye salve Paper , enough to write a customs house notice on and ink , enough to write two letters of the alphabet , and just enough reed to make a pen

. The purpose of the law in and of itself was to show us how far we fall short , how often and how much we are not good enough , because our good enough is never good enough for God , because God is perfect . Can you imagine trying to be perfect ? It would be really hard to live up to expectations of perfection .

I know some people who try to do it and they drive themselves and everybody else around them crazy , because in and of ourselves we cannot be perfect . That just is not in us , it's not part of anything that we are as human beings .

But as much as we see that we fall short of that level of perfection , the beauty of it all is that God gave us a way that we don't

have to be perfect because we can receive that perfection from Jesus Christ . Ephesians , chapter 2 , verses 4 and 5 , say because of his great love for us , god , who is rich in mercy , made us alive with Christ , even when we were dead in transgressions . It is by grace you have been saved .

A little bit further down in the same chapter , in verses 8 and 9 , it says God saved you by his grace when you believed . You can't take credit for this . It is a gift from God . Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done , so none of us can boast about it . Salvation is not the reward for the good things we have done .

That's one of those verses that we know in our head , but we still have a hard time accepting . Deep within us , we think we've got to be good enough for God . We think we have to perform so that we please God and that he will give us a pat on the back and he won't be disappointed in us .

Yet the truth of our God is that he knows that we will fall short , but he also knows that it's not because of us that we can have the relationship with God . It's because of Jesus Christ . So this morning , my friends , let me encourage you with this we can never hold ourselves up to the level of perfection and beat ourselves up because we're not there .

We all know a lot about how God wants us to live what he wants us to do , what he wants us to say , how he wants us to interact with the people around us , and we all know that at times we fall very , very short . And here's the real truth about it all God loves you just the way you are , but he loves you too much to let you stay that way .

He wants us to grow . He wants us to grow to become more like him , but at the same time he recognizes that we will never be perfect . Don't beat yourselves up for your mistakes , for where you fall short , but know that God is working in you to create all that you can be in him , by his grace

and his power . Be blessed , my friends . I'll talk to you again tomorrow . Thank you for listening today and I invite you to join me Monday to Friday , right here on Starting Right with Danny Mac .