"Why is it So Hard to Become a Better Person?"

Through the Law, God demands perfection.

We can will the good, but yetzer hara is too powerful, too strong.

We must accept the cold yet comforting reality expressed by God through the prophet Isaiah:

"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. " (Isaiah 55:7-9)

We are not God, nor can we ever presume to come to God as we are, or with what we do.

Isaiah also undoes the attempted results of righteous works:

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)

No matter how hard we may try, we cannot become better people by our trying.

Consider the Patriarch Job, the Biggest Loser in the world before NBC began pushing its weight-loss reality show,

He was deemed to be a good Jewish boy:

"There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job and that man was perfect and upright and one that feared God and eschewed evil." (Job 1:1)

The original Hebrew reads "tam veyashar", meaning both blameless and upright. Sadly, doing a good job did Job very little good.

God allowed him to become the plaything of Ha-Satan, who despoiled him of his entire wealth and family (except for a nagging wife). Then God permitted the Adversary to strike him from head to toe with sores.

So far, so much for doing good. If nothing else, Job epitomizes the pointlessness of trying to be a good person.

Yet at the end of the Book, God comes face to face with Job, upbraiding for presuming to question God' omnipotent plan. At the end of God Almighty's tirade against the railing, self-pitying destitute of Uz, Job replies:


"I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.

"Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.

"Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.

"I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.

"Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:2-6)

Like the prophet Isaiah, Job acknowledged that God's ways are not man's ways, and that man cannot presume on God's ultimate plan and justice for mankind. Before, Job only knew about God, trying to get to Him. Here, God has revealed Himself to Job, and all Job can do is receive His revelation.

For Job, his latter days were far greater than the former:

"10And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before." (Job 42:10)

"Captivity" renders the Hebrew word (shevut) that described the forced exile of the Israelites in Babylon.

What turned things for Job? He listened to the Lord, and believed what He was saying. He attained righteousness by faith, trusting in God's ultimate goodness, not his own. Instead of striving for good things as a reward for his good deeds, Job was blessed, receiving double for all that he suffered.

It is a life of faith, not good deeds, that God has been calling every one of us to lead.

Let us not forget, either, that it was not what our Father Abraham did that made him righteous (more than just "good" or "a better person"), but what he believed:

"And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness." (Genesis 15:6)

Not for a mind-boggling promise of descents innumerable, rivaling the society of stars and sands on the seashore, but in the Lord did Father Abraham placed his trust, and for that he was reckoned to be righteous -- not just good.

We do not need to become better people. We need righteousness. We need to be declared not guilty before God. By faith, not good deeds, do we begin to position ourselves before God to made righteous.

Abraham trusted in the Lord; Job cried out for a mediator (cf Job 9:33). That mediator, He who reconciled God to man, is the Messiah, Jesus Christ!