Day 3: Good Enough

By Pastor Javan Shashaty

I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the enneagram before, but it’s very revealing! Essentially, this personality test asks you some questions and then tells you your core fears and motivations in life. It’s crazy how accurate it can be! I am an enneagram 1. My core motivation is to be good at everything. I have a standard in my own mind that I set for myself that is so high it’s almost unattainable! The best way I know how to describe this is by quoting something I heard another enneagram 1 say: “It’s like I have a little voice in my head that is constantly saying: ‘Not good enough! Not good enough! Not good enough!'" This voice rings over and over again in my mind and it is hard to escape.

For most of us, it is hard to receive grace. We might accept grace if we’re late to class because of traffic or we missed work because of a family gathering. But we wouldn’t expect to be rewarded for it. We know we dropped the ball and should feel the consequences. However, the gospel is so counterintuitive to how we think the world should work! In Genesis 15, we read a story of Abraham making a covenant with God. God promises to uphold His end of the deal and give Abraham descendants. And normally, both parties would participate in the covenant ceremony. However, this time, only God participates. That means the covenant is based on His faithfulness, not Abraham’s! If Abraham fails, the promise still stands because God cannot and will not fail!

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That means the righteousness of Jesus has been credited to your account! If you’ve surrendered your life to Christ, you now stand before God the Father clothed in the perfection of the Son. When God looks at you, He sees the holiness of Jesus. Are you good enough to meet God’s standard? No way. How good is good enough? Total perfection. But thanks be to God for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who was good enough for us and has given us His righteousness!