Most Important Thing

No doubt, it does matter to God that you be a good person. We certainly can't be on good terms with Him if we are evil.   

The Bible says God is "holy." That means He is so good and so just and so pure that He defines the words. No one can hold a candle to God when it comes to holiness.   

And God does tell His people -- many times -- to be holy because He is holy. If you want to be His child, there has to be a family resemblance.   

Problem is, none of us is holy. Not even close. The Bible says our best clothes are dirty rags compared to His dazzling white robe (Isaiah 64:6). All of us live our lives our way, not His (Romans 3:10-12). Living your life your way doesn't lead to eternal life. It leads to eternal death (Romans 6:23).   

Try as hard as you want to be a good person and earn eternal life, the truth is that you're human and you're going to make mistakes. In fact, you're not only going to make mistakes, you're actually going to choose to do the wrong thing on purpose.   

And choosing to do the wrong thing on purpose means you aren't good like God is good and you don't have any hope of earning eternal life.    That's the bad news. The good news is that God doesn't expect you to earn eternal life by being a good person!    God knew from the beginning that we would insist on doing things our way instead of His. That's why He sent His Son, Jesus. Jesus showed us how a truly good, sin-free human being would live. And when Jesus the only good man chose to let evil men kill Him, He made the sacrifice none of us could make for ourselves (1 John 4:9-10).   

The Bible says we don't have to be good to be saved from death. All you need to do is declare that Jesus is truly the Lord God and stake your life on the fact that God raised Him from the dead, proving that Jesus was who He said He was (Romans 10:9-10).   

When you do that, God gives you the gift you could never earn for yourself -- eternal life -- and He gives it to you for free! (Ephesians 2:8-9)    Don't deceive yourself with the idea that God's requirement for eternal life is being a good person. If that was true, we would all be doomed.    Instead, be honest. Admit you don't really have a chance of living a perfect, sinless life. Then let God give you the most wonderful gift anyone could ever hope to receive!