“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
Oscar Wilde
With Artistic Lyon, I try to send out the stuff that puts me on my heels. The quotes and maxims like the Oscar Wilde quote, that set the tone for my day and make me think beyond my own navel (that’d be navel gazing and I’m a Jedi Knight at it).
How do you explain to a friend that they’re not good enough for heaven? Uh, whuh? Yes, a difficult conversation to say the least, but heaven’s metrics are not based on morality. Yes, that’s a fact. That’s a topic I dive deep into in I’m Not Hitler.
what does it mean to be a good person?
Personally, I stopped thinking I was a so-called good guy when I stopped lying to myself and justifying carnality and depravity. In other words when I admitted I’m a jackass on a regular basis. A caveat, I was only able to do via understanding who Jesus Christ is. Lost count how many times a day I have a jealous thought, a snarky remark, or withhold a compliment because someone pissed me off five years ago. When I humbled myself through the lens of an authority, that’d be God, I understood how I prefer glossing over the bad stuff and prefer looking at the time I opened the door for an elderly person, “Gee, ain’t I a saint!?”
In fact, I pondered how I’ve NEVER actually met anyone who leads with “You know, I’m a really bad person.” Not once have I heard that. Apparently the bad people are those OTHER people, like criminals. But if you have anger issues, or get jealous, or tell little lies here and there, or cheated on someone, or are shitty to your employees, that’s not really “bad,” just teeny little missteps. But me, I’m a good guy. (That would be another outloud hallucination.)
Is that how God sees it? Not if you take a walk down Bible lane to enlighten yourself. Check out the four Gospels. Astounding how the God of the universe cares about me regardless of my carnal thoughts and total whackadoo attitude towards others. The concept of grace, an astounding premise.