No One Does Good?

Psalms 14:1-3  For the director of music. Of David. The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.  (2)  The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.  (3)  All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

Some people may read this passage in Psalm 14 and ask "how can there be no one who does good?".  Or for anyone to say "there is no God".  If we look around we see a number of people who are good, who do good deeds.  There are millions of religious people, of various religions and sects, who profess a belief in God, especially in our country, the Philippines, which is called by many a "christian nation".  How can this psalm make any sense?

You will notice that the psalm begins by describing a fool - he is someone who says IN HIS HEART "There is no God".  He says it in his heart, not with his lips.  There are many who profess a belief in God with their mouths and practices, but in their hearts they say "there is no God".  And because in their hearts they do not have a belief in a holy God, no one checks their life, they can do anything they want.  Their sinful hearts lead them to a life that is not good.

But what about those who do good deeds, how can we say they don't believe in God?  The question is - for whose glory are they doing it?  Most of the time good deeds are done for our selves, to please ourselves, to get what we want.  At the least, it makes us feel good.  There is no God in the picture.

This unbelief of God in our hearts leads us to corruption, materialism, selfishness, pride, etc.  The word used by the Bible for this is "sin", or "sinful".

And this includes all of us...no one is exempt.

This why we need a Savior.  This is why Christ was sent - so that we would be set free from this sinful state of living for our selves, for our own glory, and not for Him.  If we remain sinners, there is no other outcome but death - not just physical death but eternal death.  This is why Christ died - He paid this consequence for us.  And all of us who put our faith in Him are considered righteous, because God the Father, our Judge, has considered Christ's payment enough to pay for our sins.  When we believe this, we are set free not just from the judgment of sin, but also from the bondage of sin.

One who puts his/her faith in Christ now has a cleansed heart, and we can now say in our hearts "there is a God".  It is our God who delivers us from our selfishness, our corruption, our materialism.  And it is He who enables us to do good.

So, yes, believers in Christ are able to do good, but only because of the working of God's grace in us.  We are a work in progress, we may still fall into sin once in a while, but the working of God's grace perfects us day by day, moving in us to conform us to the image of His Son.  Slowly but surely.

In ourselves we have no good.  When we are in Christ that is when good starts to happen, and it is good for the right reason - a good that brings glory to God both in our hearts and in our life.