Are you a good person?

Ask this question of people and you may get a number of different answers, but the majority will usually say, yes they are. This is not a surprising answer but what people are doing is answering in a relative manner rather than an absolute manner.

Or to put that in a different way, we are comparing ourselves to the other people around us, and the kinds of people we see in the news. Indeed by this comparison and especially by what we see in the news we can compare relatively well when talking about being a good person.

This gives us a problem. How do we know that we meet the standard that God has set when we go before him to be judged. It is God who will be the judge and not other people or ourselves. It says in the Bible that “man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment” Hebrews 9:27.

With this in mind, we can see that it is very important that we can meet any standard that God sets for us because God warns us all that failing to do so is a fearful thing. His word says “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” Hebrews 10:31.

God revealed to us what his standards are when He gave us the ten commandments. In these ten commandments we find what we can measure ourselves up against to see how we compare to what God tells us He requires of us (A list of the ten commandments are below - scroll down).

When we start to look at the ten commandments we tend to look at them with human eyes and make a judgement by our standards. Take for example the eight commandment which says “You shall not steal”. When we look at this we think that it is referring to breaking into houses, stealing cars, or robbing banks, but in reality just taking a pen from work that isn’t ours is theft. We think that it only applies to big crimes but stealing a small item is still theft.

The seventh commandment states that "You shall not commit adultery". Now if you ask most people if they have ever committed adultery, the most common reply is no they haven't. Jesus said something that threw some extra light on this command. In Matthew 5:27-28 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." What Jesus is telling us is, that it isn't just what we may do outwardly that counts but what we do in our heart as well. How many men are there that don't eye up that pretty girl that they see walking past? The percentage must be very small. The numbers are probably better for women but it still happens often. Someone may argue that they are only interested in the people of the same sex, but the principle is just the same in God's eyes, that a persons thoughts are the same as actions. We naturally can apply this principle to the other commandments as well. For example if we hate someone in our heart, there is a risk that we may hate them badly enough to want them dead and we have then let murder into our heart.

The commandment that condemns us all is the first commandment which says that “You shall have no other gods before me”. There is a god that we all have and that is the god of self. If we disobey God and instead do the things that we want to do, then we are making ourselves the god of our lives.

A lot of people think that the law of Moses of which the ten commandments are just a part of is no longer in effect. This is based on a mistaken believe that when Jesus came, that He brought a totally new way of how God is dealing with mankind and that the old way has been replaced. Now it is a fact that Jesus has completed God's work in regards, to salvation from our sins, but Jesus has made it clear that the law still applies to mankind when he said "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Matt 5:17-18)". We get more insight into why this is and what the purpose of the law is from Romans 3:19-20 where it says "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin." What we get from this passage is that the law will silence every mouth and the whole world (that is everybody) will be held accountable to God. Then we see that the law can not save us but rather it is the law that makes us aware of our condition before God. This last part is crucial. Unless we see out condition then it is impossible to come to God for forgiveness, because we won't know our state and our need for a way out of our plight.

Now you may be thinking that because you have kept some of the commandments or not broken them badly that you will be okay on judgement day but we are told this “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). So in other words this is like an exam with a 100% pass requirement or otherwise you fail.

You may feel that this is unfair or harsh. There are two reasons for that. Firstly because we don’t understand how Holy, righteous, and perfect God is and secondly we don’t understand that God is a perfect judge and can not just let us off for the sins we have committed that have brought shame on us – to do so would be to deny his own nature.