We Have the Mind of Christ

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ,

if any comfort from his love,

if any fellowship with the Spirit,

if any tenderness and compassion

then make my joy complete

by being like-minded,

having the same love,

and being one in spirit and purpose.

(Paul, Philippians 2:1-2)

 

Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Paul, Romans 12:2)

 

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of  God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may know what God has freely given us. . . . We have the mind of Christ. (Paul, 1 Corinthians 2:11,12,16)

 

 

The gospel has many expressions of the same reality. Some are more familiar than others. "God is light and there is no darkness in him." "For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son." "Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions." Perhaps we may also add this little phrase: "We have the mind of Christ."

True, we have much more than the mind of Christ. But we must be sure that we know that we do not have less. We do not merely have his deeds. We do not merely have his great intentions. We do not merely have his company. We also have his mind.

The mind of Christ is the entry point of discipleship and salvation. A disciple needs to do more than parrot his master, he needs to begin to share the master's thoughts and feelings if he is to have any hope of true imitation. Deliverance from this world is first and foremost an inner deliverance of the mind and spirit or else we end up with a merely external, behavioral faith.

The mind of Christ is the focal point of our discipleship and salvation. The watchword for the kingdom of God is "repentance" - metanoia- a turning, a rethinking about our thinking. This is how Jesus changes hearts. He enters through the mind, our thoughts and feelings. Our continuing repentance is a conversion of our thoughts and feelings to the thoughts and feelings of our Lord, our Master, Jesus.

We are given many of Jesus's thoughts through the Bible. If we want to know how and what Jesus thought, we need to become honest and open students of the Bible. There is no better resource. The Bible under the superintending Spirit will open up Jesus's feelings to us as well. Although the fruit of the Spirit is more than feelings, we recognize this fruit by the effect it has on our feelings: love that is joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, gentle, good, and self-controlled.

The problem with many current efforts and discipleship is the tendency to make our conformity to the mind of Christ a servant to another master, such as self-improvement, church attendance growth, material success, recognition by other people, relief from guilt, etc. When formation into Christ-likeness from the inside out becomes anything but the center and the only foundation, we end up pretending Christ-likeness while striving toward other goals. Our faith becomes hopelessly external.

 

The reason that "We have the mind of Christ" is such good news is accessibility. Through our special relationship with God opened up through Jesus, we have access to his mind. Through this access we experience deliverance from sin, wisdom for our days, direction for our life, and companionship through conversation. We find that Jesus did not come just to do something for us, but to open up his life to us to be with us even now.

 

How does enter into the mind of Christ? How do we become disciples who think and feel like our Master? What are the consequences if we neglect this access to the mind of Christ? What are our alternatives?

 

Lord Jesus, we know there are so many things that fight for our attention, some good and some not so good. We find ourselves like children, running here and there, maybe just playing in our lives instead of finding real meaning, joy, and rest. Open our hearts to the needed renewal of our minds and give us space to rest, learn, and grow. We look forward to great things from our Master! Amen.

The Invitation, the Feast

"I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet." But they paid no attention and went off - one to his field, another to his business. (Matthew 22:4-5)

The preparation has been centuries in the making. This feast is what everything was made for. The sun, moon, and stars to light it. The trees to wave joy over it. The animals to play in the midst of it. And people to enjoy it.

The people have been taught and led through the ages to come to expect and to anticipate such a feast. They were sent invitation and explanation through teachers and scriptures and even in basic human wisdom. It was all done to warm and soften their hearts to their Maker.

The final call for the feast was the most amazing. Last of all, he sent his son to them. "They will respect my son," he said. (Matthew 21:37) But it was not so. Even as his own Son came to share the good news of the Father's goodness and greatness through word and deed, all sorts of people gathered together to kill him.

The people may have thought this was the end, the last straw. But even then the invitation went out. News came back that the Son could not be killed, the invitation could not be quieted, and the people could not be unloved by the Father. Because of their disregard for his Son, they faced deep suffering. They had allied themselves with evil and now evil had them in its clutches and had its way with them. Still the invitation goes out. It's not too late. If, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:10)

We have been brought back to God through Jesus. God's forgiveness was with us even to in the depths of our own disregard, hatred, and abuse. He stayed with us even to the limits of our own evil. God is still with us. His invitation shines even more brightly than ever. Some people do not want to be reconciled. They still find reason to avoid God. Some people think that the invitation is not open to everyone, but only to a special few. But we are not locked out; we have locked ourselves in. God opens wide his door by making peace with each person through Jesus. That is the invitation. The feast is deliverance from a dead, meaningless, empty life of trying to avoid pain, justify oneself, or impress others.

This is an old story. We tire of God's persistence and insistence for us to come. It is so common that it is met with disregard. We pay no attention and go off to our pursuits. It does not have to be that way. The feast is a wedding feast, uniting God with each person and with his people. Now that unity is finally found in God-made-human, Jesus. That unity is one of living life with Him in prayerful response to his voice which always echoes the BIble, in work and play that resounds with joy and power unexplainable, and in caring for other people in a way that brings about goodness and wholeness in their lives. 

The doors are open. The feast is ready. The guests are already arriving. Join the feast. Do not just listen to the gathering from outside. Do not sit on the doorstep frustrated about who is invited. Do not fuss about how inconvenient it all is. Your response to the invitation will reveal your heart to you. Entering will show you why both laughter and tears are part of real life together with God.

Your Time Has Come - The Good News of Belonging

At the center of my heart is this place that hurts to be recognized.  One time I was lost in a crowd for a while.  When I saw a face I recognized I was overcome with relief, even giddy joy.  It is not just the familiarity, but just a small sense of belonging that comes with that recognition.  Someone looks at you and knows you and accepts you.

I have been placed in an immense crowd called humanity.  It stretches over the earth and over time.  I find it easy to get lost.  With those little (and not so little) rejections, belonging becomes precious.  Sometimes for the sake of belonging a person can forsake all reason and law.  All left behind for the sake of belonging somewhere with someone.

Perhaps this is what lies at the heart of our obsession with romance.  Perhaps even to belong for a short time, just a date, just one night, we would sacrifice anything.  In those moments a person might find at least distraction or may actually stumble on someone who really "loves" them and will stay with them a while.

When I hear the gospel of Jesus as recorded in Mark 1:15 start with "The time has come," I hear him say, "Your time has come."  No doubt much of what he meant was that God had picked the perfect moment for this good news to makes its appearance on earth.  A time that was ripe for him to overcome so much evil and bring so much good.  No doubt he meant much bigger things than just singling me out for this message.

And yet, could Jesus have also meant something in his message for each person?  "The time has come for you, Matt.  My Father has seen that it is now time for you to make your appearance in human history.  He has great plans and great hopes for you."  Maybe even his hearers understood the gravity of his pronouncement of the greatness of the coming moments of the Messiah but also heard in this man from Nazareth a compelling invitation: "Your time has come.  You belong to God.  You belong with me."

It would not be the first time I have overpersonalized something.  I am likely to take everything personally unfortunately.  God's plans certainly do not revolve around me, but they certainly don't drive over me either.  The one who set  up the universe also had me and every other person in mind.  So I don't think it impossible that people heard Jesus say "You time has come.  Come with me.  You belong with me and I am here for you."

The time had come for the world, yet it hated and rejected him.  Government and religion joined hands with Satan to perform the most horrific blasphemy of all time: the crucifixion of Jesus.  Jesus knew the time had come for the world to have its way.  But his message was not just about that surely.  Surely he looked at the disciples who would follow him to death, the women who would humble themselves before him, the children who would clamor to be blessed and said, "Your time has come.  I am calling you.  My Father and I will take you in."

Maybe Jesus says to each of us, "Your time has come.  You have meaning, purpose, and great things to do.  You can't do it alone.  Come with me and I will always be with you."  The tyranny of the world which makes its mark by rejection and condemnation is over.  Now Jesus has come with a new place for each of us to belong: at his side.  The world will still reject us, but now we have that face we can look into that deeply knows us and lovingly accepts us.  My time has come.  I belong.

The Gospel of the Kingdom

Dallas Willard interview with Keith Giles in 2005

Keith Giles- “Dallas, can you explain the difference between the Gospel of the Kingdom and the more popular, Gospel of the Atonement for us?”

Dallas Willard – “The Gospel of the Kingdom is that you can now live in the Kingdom of God and the Gospel of the Atonement is that your sins can be forgiven. Those are the, respective, ‘Good Newses’, I suppose.”

KG- “So, are you saying there are two Gospels? Are my sins not forgiven if I live in the Kingdom? Or am I not in the Kingdom of God if I accept the Gospel of the Atonement?”

DW- “The way it practically works out is this, if you have the Gospel of the Atonement, and that’s all you’ve heard, the rest of your life you will run on your own and you may or may not think of being a disciple of Jesus or of obeying him or of devoting your life to the Kingdom of God. You can still do that, but those things are all optional for you. That is where we really stand in our Christian culture today. Anything more than forgiveness of sins, and by that I mean ‘Heaven when you die’, is optional and most of our professed believers now do not know that they can live in the Kingdom of God now.

“By contrast, anyone who is alive in the Kingdom of God now knows that their sins are forgiven because they have the life of Heaven in them now. So Heaven and forgiveness are natural parts of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God whereas discipleship and holiness and power and other scriptural evidences are not a natural part of the Gospel of the Atonement. I want to emphasize that sense of being a natural part.

“Here’s one of the ways I try to help ministers understand this difference. I ask them, ‘Does the Gospel you preach truly lead to discipleship to Jesus?’ and the Gospel of the Kingdom has that natural connection. It’s not trusting the Kingdom, it’s about trusting Jesus and living in the Kingdom with Him. So then, for example, the New Birth is the birth from above and as Jesus was telling Nicodemus, “You must be born again..”, now that’s about new life that isn’t just Atonement. One of the strange things that has happened is that verses like John 3:16 is treated as if it were a forgiveness verse whereas it is really a new life verse. The whole context is about having the life of The Kingdom. Nicodemus came saying he could see it and Jesus said, ‘No, you can’t see it’, and helped him to understand why he couldn’t.

“So, it’s the idea of a natural part of The Kingdom containing forgiveness, and if you’re trusting Jesus, and not just his death on the cross alone, but the person of Jesus, then life in the Kingdom comes with that and, as a natural part, also comes discipleship, forgiveness, all of the things that any good theology would cover.”

(Full Article by Dallas Willard here)

Christ First: Paul's Colossian Letter

Distraction rules the day.  People can hardly drive in a straight line or complete a simple conversation without being interrupted by distractions.  This lack of focus ultimately comes from a divided and confused soul fueled by minds obsessed with desire.  Such minds are easily filled with "hollow and deceptive" ideas, just like those which endagered the Colossian believers in the first century.  In his letter to that group of believers, Paul gives the best and only remedy: Christ first.

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Paul grounds the Colossians in hope.  Faith "springs up" (1:5) from this hope almost automatically.  This faith takes the disciple to love.  The hope of the follower of Jesus is that "in everything he might have supremacy."  (1:18)  Christ first in everything, not just "in my heart," but in everything that has been made and is being remade.  (1:15-20)  This is the heart of the gospel which brings about faith.  (1:3-6)  Such faith brings about a "life worthy of the Lord" (1:10) which ends in "the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light", that is, "love in the Spirit."  (1:12,7)  Any hope or faith not ending in this love is not full and true.

The Colossians have not always known the truth that Christ is first in all things.  They were told through Paul's associates.  They were enemies alienated from God, but brought around to trust Him by the message of Christ's sacrificial work for them (1:21-22)  Now they are among those who know God's mystery: "Christ in you, the hope of glory."  (1:27)  Above all else, Paul says, "We proclaim him," so that the Colossians would come to know God, who they did not know at all, and "be encouraged in heart and united in love" with all believers.  (2:2)

Even as they are escaping an unrighteous ignorance of God shown by their "evil behavior," now the Colossians face a new challenge.  Self-righteousness based on "human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ" has found its way among them.  (2:8)  These teachings have "the appearance of wisdom, . . .  but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence."  (2:23)  Paul gives them a better way.

The instruction in the way of Christ begins with the heart and mind being set on "things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God."  (3:1)  With Christ first in the heart, a new life grows and old ways are put aside.  This is evidenced in their gatherings "as God's chosen people," as well as in their homes as wives, husbands, children, servants, and masters relate to each other.  Such  gatherings and homes are characterized by prayer and in careful conversations "full of grace" (4:5) with those outside the gatherings of Christ.  What begins in the heart ends with "whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus."  (3:17)

Such instruction is not abstract, but plays out in the details and drama of each person's life.  For Paul, his fellow workers and those who minister to these churches were his life.  He names them and expresses deep love for them as "dear brothers" and a "comfort to him."  (4:7,11)  "Christ in you" is not intangible, but plays out in each life in relationships and situations lived with love or without it.  This makes the gospel into a history rather than a mere myth.

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Christ is still our foremost hope, our certain faith, and our deepest love.  This gospel shown through Christ's sacrifice for us has brought us to trust Jesus.  Self-righteousness remains a constant distraction from him into making it on our own.  As Christ becomes first in our mind and hearts, we find our way to a life full of words and deeds like our Master.  This new life is lived in our day-to-day situations with the people we know and meet and nowhere else.  And so, just as Paul signs this letter at the end "in his own hand," each of us will sign our lives with or without Christ first "in our own hands."

Hope in the Kingdom of God: The Gospel

Who hopes for what he already has?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. . . .  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  (Romans 8:24b, 25, 26b)

This then is how you should pray:  Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. . . .  (Matthew 6:9)

The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.  (Romans 14:17)

Hope and prayer are tied together.  As Paul writes, "Who hopes for what he already has?"  It is no accident that his next section deals with prayer: "We do not know what we ought to pray for."  The prayer of faith springs from the hope that delivers me:  "That faith and hope that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel."  (Colossians 1:5)

Without hope, faith has no basis.  "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  (Hebrews 11:1, KJV)  As an idea gives birth to an invention or a feeling sprouts into a desire, faith stands on hope.  Hope waits for and eagerly anticipates what is not yet seen.  It is not wishing, but joyful anticipation of what is yet to come.  Faith naturally springs from hope as its consequence in the present.  What is truly hoped for is trusted in.

One of the truest expressions of faith in God is prayer.  It acknowledges trust.  If I do not trust, I do not pray.  Prayer without trust, without faith, is just religious babble.  "And do not keep on babbling as the pagans do, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask him."  (Matthew 6:7-8)  How does God know this?  It is not so much because he his omniscient, but because he loves each person so deeply that he knows them so well.  This is the prayer of faith: knowing the God who knows me as a dearly loved child.

Such prayer also springs from hope.  If I do not hope, I do not pray.  Prayer without hope is just fatalism.  It takes the words "Your will be done" in the wrong way.  Instead of joyfully anticipating the work and will of God in this present age, hopeless prayer anticipates abandonment instead of deliverance, predictable outcome instead of joyful surprise, keeping the trinkets of this world rather than acquiring the treasures of God's kingdom, turning away quickly in disappointment rather than waiting patiently for the wonders of God.

Hopeless prayer is like a king's servant who was commanded, "Put this money to work," but on the return of the king says, "I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man.  You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow."  The conclusion of the king: "I will judge you by your own words.  To everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away."  (Luke 19:11-26)  Hopeless prayer receives little and even that little is lost.

So my prayers express my faith and my faith is the substance of what I hope for.  Jesus focuses my hope on the kingdom of God in his model prayer.  His kingdom is not a matter of external matters like food, drink, or mere religious practices, but of living with and in his Spirit who "intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will," in accordance with God's kingdom.  I think that the Lord's prayer is an expression of what I am to hope for.

The good news according to Jesus is this: "the kingdom of God is near."  This is not opposed to other expressions of hope, but stands in concert with them.  Another famous passage of the good news is 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, which can be summarized, "Christ died for our sins.  Christ raised.  Christ appeared."  The King is near as is his kingdom.  He redeems each person from his slavery to sin, defeats all sin and evil through his resurrection, and appears to each person to invite them into his kingdom.

Lord, I have often neglected the hope you have given.  I have wondered about where my faith goes in trials and temptations.  I see now that it goes where my hope lies.  I find myself like a lot of people: without hope.  I see that is also without God.  Please deepen my hope, so I can eagerly await what I do not see.  Amen.

Faith is opposed to sight.  Hope that is seen is no hope at all.  This means not that I need to live in complete ignorance.  Faith is not opposed to knowledge, nor is hope without knowledge, since it lives in those "who have the firstfruits of the Spirit."  No, faith and hope are opposed to sight because what is seen is temporary and passing away.  What is seen holds no hope since it will leave me empty.  It is the God who is unseen that I hope in and his kingdom that rules over all and yet remains holy and hidden in these days.

As Good as Dead

For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit.  (Psalm 28:2)

More and more I see why God had to send the gospel, that is "good news" to me.  There is a strange human propensity to focus on what is miserable.  I guess I am not altogether surprised.  Such continual harping on the evils of the day are an indirect accusation against God.

The Psalmists teach me that such indirect accusations rot in my bones.  They make God silent because I refuse to listen.  I am tempted to bury my head in the sand of my objections, accusations, and cynical statements because they justify my rotten thoughts and actions.  When God remains silent, I wither away.

Occasionally, God is absent because he wants to teach me to draw nearer to him.  He may want to teach me deeper spiritual matters through a "desert time" or a "dark night."  More often, however, God is silent because I  shut him up.  I refuse to receive his comfort and wisdom.  I prefer my own worries and complaints to his help and comfort.  Why?

I guess I get upset that I cannot navigate this life alone.  I get mad that I am dependent on God.  I vent my frustration on everyone around me that I am not the sole object of their respect, concern, or care.

I can learn from these people of prayer in the Psalms that without this "good news" I am as good as dead.  When the Word from God is forgotten, nothing remains except fear and pain.  The gospel teaches that the heart of this universe is not "survival of the fittest" or random movements of molecules, but a Word that communicates love.  God's love is at the heart of this universe.

Something has gone dreadfully wrong with life on earth, however.  But it is not a matter of things "being made that way."  It is a matter of people refusing to accept how things are made.  Like Milton's Satan, it is easier to imagine reigning in hell than serving in heaven.  It is frightening how often we choose to reject the good news of God's love and power made plain and certain in Jesus and embrace a world of mere survival and filling our stomachs.

This wrongness that I run across every day is not what started everything.  This ruin that has occurred could not be what brought everything into being.  Neither will this wrongness finish everything, either.  This is good news.  What I see every day is not what has always been, nor what will always be.  It is a small interruption in something that has no beginning and no end.  Goodness only ends when evil comes.  Goodness and the pleasure of goodness is infinite.  Evil is temporary and fleeting.

God does not remain silent.  He spoke everything into existence.  His very Word that created the universe came and recreated what was broken in that universe.  Renewal is under way, beginning with the hearts and lives of his crowning creation.  It will be completed with all things being made new.  God does not remain silent.  His Word is the final Word.

Lord, I feel myself falling into a pit as I listen to most people talk, including myself.  Faith is forgotten.  Hope is distant.  Love is cold.  But you speak and I am saved.  I praise you.  Amen.


The main thing is not straining my ears to hear God, but unplugging my ears.  C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters that the devil is not so much trying to put things into my mind as much as keep things out.  I want to take more time to just listen.

The Goodness that Makes Life Worth Living Is Obtained by Trusting God and His Ways

Romans 1:  The Problem Is Shame in What God Has Supplied as the Way to Life

When we ask again: ‘How is it that when he enjoined us in this book of yours not to do anything or receive anything without witnesses, you did not ask him: “First do you show us by witnesses that you are a prophet and that you have come from God, and show us just what Scriptures there are that testify about you”’—they are ashamed and remain silent. [Then we continue:] ‘Although you may not marry a wife without witnesses, or buy, or acquire property; although you neither receive an ass nor possess a beast of burden unwitnessed; and although you do possess both wives and property and asses and so on through witnesses, yet it is only your faith and your scriptures that you hold unsubstantiated by witnesses. For he who handed this down to you has no warranty from any source, nor is there anyone known who testified about him before he came. On the contrary, he received it while he was asleep.’ (John of Damascus, Fount of Knowledge, Heresies, concerning Islam)  

Take note of verse 2.   The prophets testify about Jesus and lead up to him.  This is important to Paul in his writing about the gospel.  It is new.  It is unique.  It is also foretold and anticipated.

Paul received grace and his calling to apostleship for this gospel which in verse 5 he explains as "obedience that comes through faith."  We do not believe the gospel so that obedience is optional or unnecessary.  We believe the gospel so that we might complete our obedience to God.  The law and the gospel go to the same place and describe the destination the same, but only the gospel can get me there.  The law taken rightly is more descriptive than prescriptive.

His visit is for mutual encouragement, the heart of spiritual gifts (v.11).  Spiritual gifts, then, are about a connection between believers and not merely possessed in one's own life.  Without mutual edification, spiritual gifts are not really spiritual gifts.

The point of Paul's letter to the Roman church is addressing the shame that some people place on the gospel.  People prefer other "ways" to God and tend to leave the gospel because of its apparent weakness and unpopularity.  In contrast, Paul says that the gospel is God's power revealed as a righteousness by faith from "first to last."  (vv.16-17)

Shame in the gospel is nothing new.  It's unapologetic dependence on God as well as its unmitigated promise for real goodness in the lives of those who embrace and exercise it make it unpopular at all times.  People prefer to rely on their own resources.  They also prefer to have a goodness that appeals to people around them rather than a goodness that really changes them.  We all wish the world could be a better place, but we are largely unwilling to cling to the goodness that God gives because it requires real change to our lives.

Of course, righteousness by faith will be fleshed out in this letter, but at the outset, I find it helpful to understand this righteousness that Paul preaches answers the important life questions "What is real?" The power and ability of God.  "Who is well-off?"  Those who are being delivered from this evil age.  "What is good?"  What God has revealed in the gospel.  "How does one become a good person?"  By trusting in God's work through the gospel.  Faith is trust and always implied is trust in God and his ways.

Lord, may I shed my shame and embrace this faith that places your good news at the center of my life as the one thing I can count on and the one thing that will bring goodness and well-being to myself and others.  Amen.

The Good Thing, the Bad Thing

Good deeds do not always lead to God.  There are good deeds that can take us away from God.  This is a tragedy in life.  One of the main reasons that Jesus died was because he pointed this out repeatedly and severely.  He pointed out the difference between the "good" deeds of the Pharisees and the good deeds of many of the sinners.  In one of his teachings he said,

Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven.  Many will come to me one that day and say, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons and perform many miracles?"  Then I will tell them plainly, "I never knew you.  Away from me, you evildoers!"  (Matthew 7:21-23)

It is possible to do "good" things, but not the good thing.  As a matter of fact, many "good" things keep people out of the kingdom of heaven and away from God.  What keeps us out of the kingdom is the idea that there are some things that are good in themselves apart from being with God.  Jesus came to say, "Only God is good."  There are no actions or intentions performed by people on their own that oblige God to allow their entry into his kingdom or his life.

Since no "good" deeds can oblige God to bring us into his family and into his life, we can only enter by grace, God's strength and undeserved favor.  Grace is opposed to earning.  "Good" deeds that do not lead or contribute to a personal relationship with God are efforts to earn.  This is why Jesus constantly pointed out that the "sinners" of his day were entering his rule before the "good" people.  They were not doing "good" things to earn (demand) God's approval, but instead were seeking to be near to Jesus and follow him.

From this we also learn that there is no bad deed that can exclude us from God's kingdom.  If bad deeds lead to regret, sorrow, rethinking how we think (repentance), and seeking Jesus, then they become good.  Bad deeds become bad when they separate us from God (which they do), but can become good if they lead us to confession and repentance and doing truly good things.  "Bad" people can find God sooner than "good" people because of repentance.  For most of us, we find it easier to repent of the bad things we have done rather than repent of the "good" things we have done.

Really, there is only one good deed:  Jesus' death on the cross.  Anything good must come out of this goodness.  Any "good" thing done outside of this goodness as competition to it, as evidence that I don't need it, or in willful ignorance of its necessity end up taking me away from God and his plans for me and all people.  When my good deeds come from gratitude for the cross, praise to the God who planned such a deed for my sake, and desire to imitate the cross in my life by putting to death the things that come "naturally" but lead me away from God, then they are truly good because they come from the good of the cross.

Perhaps there is also only one bad thing.  Perhaps that is what Original Sin is about.  All bad things come from that first willful act of disobedience and distrust of God.  There is nothing new under the sun.  Bad things can look surprisingly "good," but when they lead us from the loving arms of God they are bad.  Such bad things can be unrepentant actions of self-service that hurt ourselves and others, or they may be acts of self-righteousness that ignore our daily need of God in our life.  Either way they come from a lie that is told: "You don't need God; you can be your own god."  They come from a world living out that lie to its fullest.  They come from an inward propensity to "make it on my own" and "do what I want to do."

Certainly, God is merciful.  He will not turn away people who want to be with him, even at the last moment.  The thief on the cross stands as an icon of hope.  Our good deed may not be much, but when it is turned toward Jesus as our hope and deliverance, it is enough because of the grace poured out on all of us through the cross.  There have been people reported in the Bible who have been delivered by God without knowing much about him: Rahab the whore, a Syrophoenician idol-worshiper, and a thief on a cross.  This shows the kind of God we might serve.  One who is "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love."  (Psalm 103:8)

However, we must be honest about each of these people.  Rahab was one of an entire city.  The thief was one of a great crowd who gathered to see Jesus die.  Many will not come to grace.  The gospel is God's power exerted to save people, his last, best word of mercy and grace, his effort to open up his kingdom to everyone and anyone.  God's mercy to people who do not know Jesus is not the good news primarily, but a loophole of his kindness.  The good news is that we need not guess nor do we have to wait until we are at death's door to draw near to God.  We can see his mercy and live in it through Jesus.  The good news is that the good deed is done and that we merely need to live with it and live by it and live in it.  The kingdom of God has always been, since God has always been king, but now we see that his rule is one of grace and mercy and those who can accept this through Jesus can enter.

The reason we know we are delivered is that we can live with God's voice in our hearts and God's presence at our side daily.  He will not abandon us to death any more than he abandons us in this present age.  The life we begin with him will continue and grow, just as existence without him will also continue and degrade.  The gospel, the good news is that we can start living with Jesus and like Jesus now.

So not all "good" things lead to God and not all bad things lead away from him.  What is needed is a will set on choosing Jesus and his way rather than our own.

Lord, may I learn to see and live in your goodness rather than my own.  May I allow my sins to lead me to your feet.  May I live by the cross so I might be raised with you in every aspect of my life.  Amen.