If the world is bad,
People made it so.
A better world
Requires better people.

We try to fix the world with laws & programs that fail to make us better people. The world doesn’t need a better political system. It needs better people. (If good people are running the world, why is it in such a mess?) Governments are filled with corruption because they are full of bad people. Jesus is great news for bad people — the opportunity to be changed from within.

A new year without a new you will be the same ole same ole. (See 2 Corinthians 5:17) If I am a good person, why don’t I do the good things that I resolve to do?  Resolutions fail when we try to do them in our own power and self-righteousness. I resolve to admit that I can’t keep resolutions without Christ working in me! We resolve, “I will stop that,” and then we don’t, because we won’t let God free us. When your resolutions begin to fail, early in the new year, cry out to the risen Jesus! A New Year’s resolution can’t make me a better person. Only Christ can do that!

If we humans were good people, the world would be good — no laws necessary. People say, “I’m a good person,” but Jesus said, “No one is good–except God alone. (That’s why good people who are completely honest & always do the right thing are hard to find.) The Bible says: “There is none righteous, no not one.” We’re all bad people needing Christ’s mercy.  If I resolve to behave better but I’m not changed inside, I’ll stay stuck in bad.

Good people don’t misbehave, so they don’t need forgiveness. Bad people do. God loves us bad people so much, He sent Jesus to live a good life in & through us. Turn away from your badness & surrender to the risen Jesus & His goodness!

Christ wants to free us from our carnality and connect us to His reality! Whoever says “I’m a good person,” denies the evil in his/her own heart. Jesus came to forgive us bad people, change our nature, and empower us to love. The world’s a mess because people are a mess, that’s why we need a Savior. We don’t need just to “do better,” we need to be better–transformed from within! Forgiven bad people love much but “whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

I’m not a good person. I’m a person forgiven and transformed by Jesus Christ. People say “Be good,” but we can’t be good. We must surrender to Christ’s goodness! Jesus didn’t say, “Make yourself good,” He said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.”

Has our society deceived us into believing that we are good people? I individually asked 1,400+ addicts, “What kind of person are you?” All but a handful replied: “I’m a good person.” However, Paul of Tarsus, who wrote much of the New Testament, wrote: “O, wretched man that I am.”

What would you do if there were no laws or consequences? That’s who you really are. It’s so frustrating for us bad people to try to be good in our own power. (Romans 7) The only reason humans can be forgiven and restored to God is the blood of Jesus. “My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” Good people wouldn’t need grace; they could stand before God on their own merit.