6 Words That Will Change Your LifeSýnishorn

In fourth grade, I cheated. I asked the kid next to me what 9 x 7 was. Surprisingly, I still passed math that year. Why? Because as bad as I was, there were other kids who were worse than me, and this particular public school graded on the curve.   

Grading on the curve measures a student not on what they know, but on how they compare to the rest of the class.  

The other more traditional approach to grading uses one set standard. Your grade is determined by whether you hit or miss a pre-established, uncompromising benchmark.  

Did you know that God doesn’t grade on the curve? Our natural human inclination is to look at others to see how we stack up in terms of being “good” or “bad.” But God doesn’t measure our performance based on how we compare with other people’s performances. 

God’s righteous and holy nature demands that He set the standard for a righteous and holy heaven. So if you don’t get 100% right all the time, then you’ve flunked out. 

In essence, this is what today’s passage in Romans 3 is referring to. There’s no way to pass God’s class on our own. Why? Because we don’t understand (verse 11). We don’t seek God (verse 11). We don’t do good (verse 12). We lie (verse 13). We’re mean (verse 13). We’re hateful, bitter and hurtful (verse 14). And we don’t respect our teacher (verse 18). 

But by His mercy, God’s standards aren’t there to crush us. They’re there to point us in the right direction. For it is only when we become conscious of our sin, that we realize our desperate need for a Savior. 

Truly embracing the gospel begins with knowing that we are destined to fail if we try to pass His class through our own efforts. It’s impossible. Like a first grader at Harvard, who’s been dropped into an Advanced Calculus class, we are more inclined toward squabbling over Lego® pieces than mastering algorithms. 

Many people think you can earn your way into heaven by being “good enough.” Initiate a spiritual conversation with someone in the next few days about what it takes to get to heaven after you die. Here are some possible questions you might use as springboards to deeper conversation: 

• How does being “good enough” measure up against a holy God’s standard of perfection?