I used to think myself as a caring, generous and responsible person, and I tried to make friends by impressing them with my capabilities and personality and was proud of that. For a long time, I felt so good about myself and satisfied with my standard of being good. However, the stories in the Bible told me that our goodness is not enough, and God does not love someone depends on how good he is. Instead, a prostitute could be saved only if she believed in Jesus. I was disappointed at first. I did not understand why God is not pleased by my goodness as I thought my whole value was to be a good person. Another question in my head was what's the point of being good if God does not care?
I did not understand my goodness is not enough until I saw the movie, The Passion of the Christ. The movie first struck me by the graphical scenes and tragic story. But it's also a movie that helped me realize what is the true value of being good. The beauty of selflessness, the will of saving all the people and the dedication of sacrificing himself. All these amazing personalities impressed me so much and I realized this is the real goodness. Just when I wrote this testimony, I was evoked to think about my past behavior. Did I really help others selflessly like what Jesus did? It is obviously not always, if not never. Sometimes I tried so hard to earn respect and trust, and sometimes I just wanted to feel good about myself. When I was tired or lazy to help, I made excuses to my friends, and persuaded myself I'd done enough for them. Now I understand why God will not be pleased by my behaviors as I built my values in vain. The more I thought I'd accomplished, the more pride I found in myself. At that time, I finally get the idea of how to relate myself to Jesus. As if He was not there, I could never see myself as a sinner and still be trapped in my old way of being good. He was right, I did not know what I was doing, and 2000 years ago, He died for me to let my sins be forgiven.
