Truly Good?

The Bible, in Isaiah, referred to those who call good evil and evil good; it's an apt description of the world we live in. In the 17th chapter of Acts, we see a description of the early Church and it work - we can see these words:
4 And some of them were persuaded; and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas.
5 But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.
6 But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, "These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.
7 Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king--Jesus."

The opponents of the spread of Christianity resorted to violence to shut down the message of the gospel - does that sound familiar?  The followers of Jesus were said to have "turned the world upside down." We need that today - the Word of God an upend the philosophies of humanity, the ideologies that oppose God. We are called to be His representatives, boldly proclaiming His truth - pointing people to the One who is truly good and who has defeated the enemy and come to redeem those who are trapped by sin in their lives. 

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In a truly telling passage from Mark 10, we find a man who was seeking eternal life, to achieve or experience eternal goodness. We can read these words:
17 Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?"
18 So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.
19 You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Do not defraud,' 'Honor your father and your mother.' "
20 And he answered and said to Him, "Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth."

21 Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me."

The words "good" and "evil" are absolute terms, derived from an understanding of absolute truth. I would submit, based on the Scriptures, that these terms are defined by God Himself. In a culture that seems to specialize in either "gray" areas or outright calling good evil and evil good, God's Word brings the clarity we need in order to live our lives as followers of Christ. 

But, a new survey indicates that people in 17 countries don't see it that way.  The Christian Post reports that the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Survey, which was conducted last spring, yielded these results:

When asked if it was “necessary or not necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values,” majorities of respondents based in the secular Western European countries of Sweden (90%), France (77%), the United Kingdom (76%), the Netherlands (76%), Spain (74%), Belgium (69%), Italy (68%), Germany (62%) and Greece (60%) said it wasn't necessary.

But that's not all. Even in the U.S., 65% of respondents separated moral "goodness" from belief in God. 85% of Australians and 73% of Canadians held that view. The Christian Post also noted: "Majorities of respondents in the Eastern European nations of Poland (67%) and Hungary (63%), which have governments sympathetic to traditional values and religion, said the same."

In the U.S., according to the survey, "Even among those who described religion as 'important' to them, a narrow majority (51%) suggested that a moral life is possible in the absence of a belief in God."

On a more widespread basis, here's somewhat of a stunner: "A difference in views between the religiously affiliated and the religiously unaffiliated regarding the necessity of a belief in God to living a moral life with good values extended across all the countries surveyed, although in all but one case, majorities belonging to both groups did not think a belief in God was a requirement for achieving such a life."

Therein lies the problem - even though the Bible says there is no one who is truly good, there seems to be the pervasive belief that humanity is basically good.  And, if we believe that we are good, then that makes it harder to understand why a person needs a Savior.  Even those in the U.S. who said that religion was important to them claim one can be good without believing in God.

God is the source of goodness.  Even Jesus would not refer to Himself as good - He acknowledge that goodness comes from God.  We have to recognize that we are not good, cannot be in and of ourselves, and need the presence of Jesus in our lives to experience true goodness and rejection of evil.

Problem is, I think we have a need to feel "good" about ourselves, so we say that we are good based on what we do or who we think we are, not who God says we are.  And, by that measure, we also can begin to understand that people think if their good outweighs their bad, they will have a place in heaven - and survey data even shows self-professing Christians disagreeing with Jesus about who gets in: He said that no one - no one - comes to the Father except through Him. 

We have lost sight of the source of goodness; and that is why people now call things that have been recognized as evil for years and years as good.  The world is turned upside down and we need Jesus to truly, as the book of Acts describes the work of the early Church, to turn the way things are "upside down" and get things right again.