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Can doing good make you acceptable to God? How much good would you have to do?
The interesting thing is that there is no weighing scales in Heaven. On judgement day your bad deeds will not be weighed up against your good deeds. That's not the way it works.
God is perfect and only that which is perfect may live with him. That means in order to get to God you need to be perfect! That's what Jesus said "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48 And later, speaking of the Heavenly City, the Scripture says "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, ..." Revelation 21:27
So how do we do that? The Bible does say that if you keep all of the law all of the time and never break it you will have eternal life - Galatians 3:10-11. However, it also says that no one can do that. No one performs perfectly all of the time.
In fact its interesting to note what the prophet Isaiah wrote concerning what God thinks of all the good things you do - they are like a menstrual cloth - Isaiah 64:6. Not very pleasing really.
The purpose of God's law is not to get you to heaven if you can keep it. No, the purpose is to show you that you can't live up to God's standard and so are in dire need of his mercy. In short, you may be another Mother Teresa but you are as guilty as hell and that's where you are going if you don't let God do something about it.
The pass mark for God is 100%. You may get 99.99% (fat chance) but you still fail. Only perfection is good enough for God. Only God can make you acceptable.
How perfect are you?
If you want to know what your biggest problem with all this really is, click here.
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