READ: MATTHEW 23:27-28; EPHESIANS 2:4-10; PHILIPPIANS 3:7-9

Have you ever cut into a shiny red tomato, only to find it was all rotten in the middle? It may have looked perfect on the outside—not even a bruise. But inside, it’s mushy and not fit to be eaten. Sometimes we are like that rotten tomato. Many of us put up a good front. We may do good things—we follow the rules, read the Bible every day, volunteer at church, and help out at home. We look great on the outside!

But God sees the sin in each of our hearts. He knows what we’re really like on the inside. The truth is, all of us sin. The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 17:9, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.” Apart from Jesus, our hearts are sinful and deceitful even when our actions look impeccable. Doing good things doesn’t make us good.

So what can we do? We can’t make a rotten tomato good, and we can’t fix our rotten hearts either. But God can. Jesus took all of that mushy, rotten sin upon Himself when He died on the cross in our place—then He was resurrected from the dead to free us from sin and death. When we stop trying to make ourselves good and instead trust Jesus to save us, He removes our sin and gives us His righteousness. He gives us new hearts, free from the decay of sin (Ezekiel 36:26).

In the end, we can’t make ourselves look good to God by doing good things. That might make us look good to other people, but God sees our hearts—He knows we’re sinners. We need Jesus. Only He can save us from sin and give us good hearts. Once we put our trust in Jesus, we will still struggle with sin until the day He returns, but we can rest knowing that in Him we are forgiven, and He has purified our hearts through faith (Acts 15:9). • A. W. Smith .

• When are you tempted to trust in your own good deeds to make you righteous in God’s eyes? We all fall into this from time to time, and we all need to be continually reminded of the gospel ("Know Jesus" page). Consider spending some time in prayer, asking God to help you notice ways you are trusting in your own goodness— and to recognize how you fall short. You can ask Him to help you trust in Jesus’s goodness instead, and you can thank Him for His sure forgiveness.

We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Isaiah 64:6 (NLT)