Galatians 5:4
You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.
If you were to ask someone what it takes to get to heaven, I believe that the number one answer would be, “If your a good person you go to heaven”. In a worldly way of thinking it makes perfect sense that good people get rewarded, and bad people get punished. However, this age old philosophy will keep you as far away from Christ as you can get. Being a good person is great, but being good in order to please God is considered works and will never get you their.
Paul tells us that trying to be justified by the law, gets you alienated from Christ. In fact no amount of work, discipline, or moral behavior can save us. If anyone were trying to find favor with God by behavior then they would have to keep all of God’s Commandments and never break even the smallest one.
Trying to save ourselves by keeping all of God’s laws only separates us from God. Religion is a horrible way to approach God since it involves a lot of fear and condemnation. If you look at the High priest, on the Day of Atonement, you will notice that he wore bells around his garments and a rope was tied to his right ankle before he could enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple. If he did everything correctly he was able to survive in the presence of God. There must have been some fear in approaching God and entering into His presence. The bells were so that those outside could listen. If they kept hearing bells, that indicated that the priest was OK. If the bells stopped and they heard a thump, then they could pull the priest out using the rope. No one could enter the Holy of Holies (God’s presence) except the high priest or they would die.
Now the good news is that when Jesus died on the cross the temple curtain that separated the Holy of Holies was torn from the top down so that now anyone can approach God through Jesus. We need to place all of our trust in Jesus and His finished work on the cross. He has saved us! So does this mean we can just run wild through life? No! When we realize the price that Jesus paid for our salvation it will cause us to be a good person. I have seen people with very horrible backgrounds completely change when the accept Christ.
