“Good Enough” is not Good Enough.
(Leia este post em português.)
“Good enough” is what we say when things are not. Think for a moment about how you use it. Do you ever say “good enough” when you have done a stellar job? No. The expression is reserved for those moments when you have put an effort into something, and don’t plan to do more. After a quick evaluation of what ever lopsided thing it is, you judge it to be “good enough.”
Years ago, when I did a paper route to pay my way through college, I delivered an average of 500 papers a day. It was a race against time, weather, and nitpicky customers, who wanted to receive their papers “just so.” On a miserable, wet morning, when I was already running late, it was very easy to watch a paper fly through the air, slide across the wet driveway, slip under a bush so that only a small edge was still visible and think, “Good enough. They’ll see it.” But it wasn’t good enough. It could be better. And here is where we find the key element of why we assess situations to be “good enough”: correcting it would require more effort; possibly starting all over again. I would have to get of my car (yes, I used a car. Bicycle paper boys don’t carry 500 newspapers!), run up the drive in the rain, and place the newspaper somewhere more visible. A place less likely to get soaked through. The same could not be said of me by the time I got to my car.
I digress.
“Good enough” implies that the best has not been done, only enough to be considered good. It also carries with it the sense that you don’t care enough to do the very best, but will let it pass with “good enough.”
I’m afraid many Christians today think what they are doing for God is “good enough.” Oddly enough, my experience tells me that most of us believe we could always do better. (In fact, I’ve only ever met one person who actually said, “No, I can’t do better. I’m doing my best.” Unfortunately, it was very empty boast, even by the lowest standards.) With this glaring exception, when asked, the Christians I know would say that of course, there’s always more that can be done, and be done better. Then why does it seem that so many of the same people (myself included) get comfortable with, and settle for, doing “good enough”?
Consider our salvation. Were any of our efforts good enough for God? Can anyone, by stacking up all the best and greatest acts of selflessness and solidarity known to man, stand before our Maker and say, “This is good enough”? Did not the saving of our souls require that we acknowledge our inability to do anything that was good enough? We all fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). That’s why Christ had to do the work for us—we simply weren’t good enough.
Well then, if our best efforts are not good enough, why should we even try? Because our efforts after salvation are different than what they were before salvation. A number of passages will tell you we were saved for good works, if most certainly not by them (cf. Eph. 2;8-10; Titus 2:11-14; James 2:17, and so on). Having received salvation by the supreme sacrifice of the only one who could do such a thing, Jesus Christ, we are now encouraged, exhorted, and commanded, to act upon our newfound ability to be like Him. (And even that is through His Spirit; cf. Gal. 3:3.)
And it’s not just to do “good enough” (I realize it should be “well enough” in this situation, but I’m sticking to the title phrase for emphasis). What am I getting at is Romans 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” I want to emphasize two points from this verse:
First, Paul begs the readers to present their bodies as a living, holy, and acceptable sacrifice to God. Things sacrificed did not give a portion of themselves, and walk away, saying, “That ought be good enough.” No, things sacrificed were consumed on the altar, and if not on the altar, by the priesthood. Don’t try to stretch that bit too far, but understand: things sacrificed were wholly given to God. Paul is not recommending a partial surrender, but whole surrender. And that the surrender should be holy and acceptable to God means He isn’t just looking for quantity (I gave it all), but for quality (I gave my best–by His standards!).
Second, Paul says this is your “reasonable service” (literally, “your true worship”). God is not looking for people who run down a list of “things I do for God” and conclude, “I am doing enough.” True worship requires that we give all of ourselves (sacrifice) to be consumed in doing His work. And the key to doing so, by the way, is in the next verse, which explains that living sacrifices don’t conform themselves to the world’s standards, but are transformed to live by God’s standards (Rom. 12:2).
The bottom line is this: in your Christian walk, whether it be in your study of God’s Word, in your fellowship with other believers, in your witness to unbelievers of God’s great news of salvation–whatever you do, you should never settle and be satisfied with “good enough.”
We are called to be a living, holy, acceptable sacrifice; anything else…is just not good enough.
