# The Devil's Favorite Lie

An episode of [AfterMass](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1823710125), 19 Aug 2025, 29 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/1069762b8/podcast/play/107042674/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-7-19%2F405890149-44100-2-9fa237d0b2a55.mp3

In this episode of After Mass, we expose one of the devil’s most dangerous lies: “I’m a good person, that’s enough.” It sounds harmless, even comforting.. but it’s a trap that keeps countless souls lukewarm, blind to their need for Christ. Together, we’ll unpack why “being good” by the world’s standards isn’t the same as holiness, how Scripture shatters this illusion and what it actually means to live a life that’s prepared for Heaven.This conversation will challenge, convict and call you deeper, because the enemy wants you comfortable, but God is calling you to be transformed. 📧 Have a question or story you want to share? I'd love to hear from you! Email me at theaftermasspodcast@gmail.com. 📲 Connect with me on socials: TikTok & Instagram @anamunley and @aftermass After Mass is powered by Truthly! Helping Catholics grow in faith with trustworthy resources. Get your free 30 day trial here: bit.ly/anaXtruthly

## Transcript

[0:00] Hi, friends, and welcome back to Aftermath.
[0:02] I'm your host, Anna. And today we're taking on what I
[0:05] think is the devil's favorite lie.
[0:07] And it's one that I'm sure you've heard 100 times, maybe
[0:11] you've even said a couple times, but it's the lie of I'm a good
[0:15] person. It sounds harmless and
[0:17] comforting and probably even noble, but it is a trap.
[0:23] It's a lie designed to keep you stuck in complacency instead of
[0:27] running after holiness. I'm a good person.
[0:35] That's probably one of the most common phrases that people use
[0:38] when they're talking about faith or morality and eternity even.
[0:42] We've all heard it, maybe from a friend, family member, maybe
[0:47] from our own lips at one point. It's a phrase that we cling to
[0:51] like a safety net, a way of saying I don't need to think too
[0:55] hard about God or eternity because I'm covered.
[0:59] I'm good. I'm fine.
[1:01] I'll never forget a conversation that my husband and I had with
[1:05] someone in our lives a little while back.
[1:07] And they, you know, grew up Catholic.
[1:10] They call themselves Catholic. But we knew that they weren't
[1:12] going to Mass so gently. We just asked if they had ever
[1:15] thought about going back to church.
[1:17] And without missing a beat, they said, no, I don't really need
[1:21] to. I'm, I'm a good person.
[1:22] I don't hurt anyone. I treat people with respect and
[1:26] kindness. I always try to do the right
[1:28] thing, and honestly, I wasn't surprised that's the answer that
[1:33] so many people give. In fact, you could probably fill
[1:36] in the rest of the script with me right now.
[1:39] I'm a good person. I don't steal, I'm a good
[1:41] person. I don't kill.
[1:42] I'm a good person. I pay my bills, I'm a good
[1:44] person, I recycle, I donate to charity, etcetera, etcetera.
[1:47] So yeah, I'm a good person, and on the surface all of it is
[1:51] true. But when we look at it a little
[1:53] deeper, compared to the worst of the worst, the murderers, the
[1:57] abusers, the corrupt, most of us do look good.
[2:00] If the bar is simply don't be a terrible human being, then most
[2:05] of us pass no problem. But the real question is good
[2:09] compared to who? Because if the standard is my
[2:12] neighbor who yells at his kids, then I look pretty good.
[2:15] If the standard is a celebrity who's caught up in scandal, I
[2:19] look like a St. But what happens when the
[2:21] standard isn't other people? What happens when the standard
[2:24] is God? That's when that little phrase
[2:27] I'm a good person starts to collapse because God, he doesn't
[2:31] line us up compares to one another and say, well, you,
[2:36] you're not as bad as him. His standard is holiness.
[2:39] His standard is himself. And suddenly that comforting
[2:43] little sentence doesn't feel like the truth anymore.
[2:47] It feels like a trap. And that's exactly what it is.
[2:50] And that's why I call it the devil's favorite lie.
[2:52] Because if the enemy can convince you that being good is
[2:56] enough, you will never chase holiness.
[2:59] You will never run to confession.
[3:01] You will never cling to the cross, and you'll just settle
[3:04] for good enough. And good enough is exactly where
[3:08] the devil wants you. All of this is not a new
[3:11] problem. This lie didn't just pop up in
[3:13] the modern world. It's ancient.
[3:15] It goes all the way back to the beginning, to the very first lie
[3:19] in the garden. And once you see it there, you
[3:22] will start to understand why it's still so effective today.
[3:25] So let's talk about where did this lie actually come from?
[3:28] Why does it show up in every generation, in every culture, in
[3:32] every single human heart at one point or another?
[3:35] And to answer that, let's go to the Garden of Eden.
[3:38] Think about the serpent's words to Eve.
[3:41] He doesn't come at her with some obvious outrageous temptation
[3:46] like, hey, Eve, why don't you go kill Adam today?
[3:51] That's not how that happened. The devil, he comes with
[3:55] something subtle, something that sounds good on the surface.
[3:58] You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it,
[4:02] your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good
[4:06] and evil. That's right from Genesis.
[4:08] That was the first temptation, and it wasn't just about fruit.
[4:12] It wasn't just about disobedience.
[4:15] It was about authority. The devil was whispering.
[4:18] You don't need God to tell you what's right and wrong.
[4:22] You can decide that for yourself.
[4:23] You can set your own standard, and humanity has been running
[4:27] with that ever since. That's exactly what people mean
[4:31] today when they say I'm a good person.
[4:33] It's basically saying I have decided what's good, and
[4:37] according to my own standard, I measure up.
[4:41] That's the echo of Eden. That's the serpent's whisper
[4:44] still at work. And here is why this lie is so
[4:48] effective, because it's close to the truth.
[4:51] The devil rarely tempts us with something half true.
[4:54] He takes something good like kindness, generosity, fairness,
[5:00] and twists it just enough to blind us to our need for God.
[5:04] Because yes, it is good to treat people well.
[5:08] It is good to live with integrity.
[5:10] It is good to try and do the right thing.
[5:13] But the moment we convince ourselves that that's all that
[5:16] God requires, that being nice and being decent is enough,
[5:21] we've swallowed the hook. Think of it this way.
[5:24] Imagine someone who eats junk food every day.
[5:27] They don't starve. So they tell themselves, see,
[5:29] I'm fine, I'm surviving. I don't need anything else.
[5:33] Technically they're alive, but you know, they are malnourished.
[5:36] They are weak and unhealthy. And that's what this lie does to
[5:41] our souls. It convinces us that spiritual
[5:44] survival is good enough when God actually wants us thriving and
[5:49] alive with his grace. And that's why the enemy again,
[5:52] loves this lie. Because it doesn't make you
[5:55] rebel, It doesn't make you run from God and open defiance.
[5:59] It just makes you settle. It convinces us that we really
[6:04] don't need to go that much deeper.
[6:07] You don't need to pray more, you don't need to run to the
[6:10] sacraments because you are fine. You are good.
[6:14] But good according to who? That's the next big question.
[6:18] If the standard of good is just me comparing myself to the
[6:22] people around me, then I will always pass the test.
[6:25] But if the standard is God and His Holiness, His perfection,
[6:30] His law, suddenly you start to see the gap God standard versus
[6:36] ours. So when most people say I'm a
[6:39] good person, what they really mean is I'm better than some
[6:42] people. That's usually the measure.
[6:45] I don't cheat on my spouse like so and so.
[6:48] I don't steal like those people on the news.
[6:51] I'm not perfect, but at least I'm not doing drugs.
[6:54] I'm not committing crimes. And by that definition, yeah,
[6:57] you do look good. I look good.
[7:00] Most of us do. But the problem is that that's
[7:04] our standard. That's how we define good.
[7:06] And our standard, it changes all the time.
[7:09] Culture constantly shifts the definition.
[7:12] What was considered moral 100 years ago might be mocked today.
[7:17] What was once seen as sinful might now be celebrated.
[7:21] Our society sets the bar based on convenience and preference.
[7:25] And majority opinion, and if you build your external security on
[7:29] a standard that keeps changing, you're standing on a quicksand.
[7:33] God's standard that never shifts.
[7:36] It's not a moving target. He doesn't just look at us and
[7:39] say just try to be a little better than the average guy and
[7:42] you'll be fine. His standard is himself.
[7:45] Jesus says it directly in Matthew 548.
[7:48] Be perfect. Therefore, as your heavenly
[7:50] Father is perfect. That's the bar.
[7:53] Not decent, not better than average, not good enough.
[7:57] Perfection, holiness, union with God.
[8:01] And I know what you're thinking. That is impossible.
[8:03] Nobody's perfect. Nobody can hit that standard.
[8:06] And you're right, I'll never hit that standard on our own.
[8:09] We cannot. That's exactly the point,
[8:12] though. That's why we need grace.
[8:14] That's why we need a savior. But the devil sneaks in with his
[8:18] favorite lie and whispers, don't worry about all that holiness
[8:21] stuff, You're fine, you're a good person.
[8:24] That's enough. And that's where people stop.
[8:27] That's where they stop thriving. They stop repenting.
[8:30] They stop chasing after transformation because they have
[8:34] convinced themselves that God will accept good enough.
[8:38] Let me give you an analogy. Imagine two people trying to
[8:41] swim across the ocean. One of them can swim 50 yards
[8:46] and the other one can swim 5 miles.
[8:49] Who's closer to Europe? Sure, the one who swam 5 miles,
[8:52] he made it further. But neither is getting across.
[8:56] Both fall short. Both are going to drown.
[8:59] That's what it's like when we compare ourselves to other
[9:01] people instead of to God. You might be able to say I've
[9:05] gone further than most, but at the end of the day, compared to
[9:08] God's perfection, compared to His Holiness, we're all in the
[9:12] same boat. Romans 323 says it all have
[9:16] sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
[9:20] You can be the nicest person in your city, but if you are living
[9:23] in mortal sin, you're separated from God.
[9:26] You can give away millions of dollars to charity, but if you
[9:29] reject God's grace, you're still not good in the eternal sense.
[9:33] You can be the most generous, friendly, likable person in the
[9:37] world, but without holiness, without Christ, you're still
[9:41] lost. That's the gap between our
[9:44] standard and God's. We think nice is enough.
[9:48] God calls us to holiness. We think being good is the goal.
[9:53] But God calls us to be perfect as He is perfect.
[9:56] And this is where it gets interesting.
[9:58] Because if we really want to know what good means, we need to
[10:02] ask the one person who lived it perfectly, Jesus.
[10:06] So let's look at what he said. Because believe it or not, Jesus
[10:09] actually addressed this idea of goodness head on.
[10:13] And his answer might surprise you.
[10:15] Jesus is the only one who perfectly revealed God's
[10:17] standard to us. So what does he say about being
[10:21] good? There's this moment in Mark's
[10:23] gospel. You also see it in Matthew and
[10:25] Luke where this rich young man runs up to Jesus and he says,
[10:30] Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
[10:34] And if you remember, Jesus answers and says, why do you
[10:37] call me good? No one is good except God alone.
[10:42] Think about that. Jesus, God in the flesh, the
[10:45] sinless Son of God, doesn't casually accept the compliment.
[10:49] He pointed straight back to the Father.
[10:51] No one is good except God alone. Now obviously Jesus wasn't
[10:56] denying his divinity here. What he's doing is exposing the
[11:00] way that we throw around the word good.
[11:02] We say, Oh, that's a good movie, that's a good meal, She's a good
[11:07] person. We use good as if it's just
[11:10] average decency. And Jesus is saying, hold on
[11:14] true goodness that belongs to God.
[11:17] Think about how radical that is. If even Jesus in his earthly
[11:21] ministry refuses to let people water down the word good, why do
[11:26] we think we can claim it for ourselves so easily?
[11:29] And notice what Jesus does in that conversation.
[11:32] The man asks about eternal life, and Jesus reminds him of the
[11:36] commandments, God's law. In other words, he points him
[11:39] back to God's standard, not man's standard.
[11:43] And when the man insists he's kept them all, Jesus goes
[11:46] deeper. He puts his finger on the man's
[11:49] attachment to wealth and says, Sell what you have, give to the
[11:52] poor and come follow me. The man thought he was already
[11:55] good. He thought he was checking the
[11:57] boxes. But when confronted with God
[11:59] himself, he realized his goodness wasn't enough.
[12:03] And instead of surrendering, he walked away sad.
[12:06] That's the danger of I'm a good person.
[12:09] It tricks us into thinking we've already arrived, that we don't
[12:12] need to go deeper, that we don't need to surrender more.
[12:16] But Jesus's words cut through all of that.
[12:19] No one is good except God alone. And that means our goodness, our
[12:23] decency, our niceness, our comparison games isn't the
[12:27] measure God is. The measure His Holiness is, the
[12:30] measure His perfection is. And that truth forces us to
[12:35] either humble ourselves like the tax collector or walk away like
[12:39] the rich young man. And that brings me to my next
[12:42] story that Jesus told, one that really exposes this lie in
[12:47] action. Because there's a difference
[12:48] between thinking you're good and actually being right with God.
[12:53] And nobody illustrates that better than the Pharisee.
[12:56] This is one of the clearest pictures that Jesus gives us of
[12:59] this lie, of this I'm a good person.
[13:01] Lie in Luke 1. No, in Luke 18914 Jesus tells
[13:07] the story of two men, one who go up to the temple to pray, 1 is a
[13:10] Pharisee, you know, religious leader, someone who knew the law
[13:14] inside and out and the other is a tax collector, someone
[13:17] despised in society. He was considered corrupt and
[13:20] sinful. And here's how Jesus says that
[13:23] their prayers went. The Pharisee stands tall and
[13:25] prays. God, I thank you that I'm not
[13:27] like the other people. Robbers, evil doers, adulterers,
[13:32] or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give a
[13:36] tenth of all I get. Sound familiar?
[13:39] I'm a good person. I don't do what those people do.
[13:42] I follow the rules. I check the boxes.
[13:43] I'm I'm fine. Meanwhile, the tax collector
[13:46] won't even lift his eyes to heaven.
[13:49] He beats his chest and he says, God have mercy on me, a Sinner.
[13:53] And then Jesus drops the mic. I tell you that this man, rather
[13:57] than the other, went home justified before God.
[14:01] So if we think about that, the Pharisee had the resume, he had
[14:04] the works, he was in human eyes, a good person, but he was blind
[14:09] to pride, to sin, to his need for God's mercy.
[14:13] And the tax collector, on the other hand, had nothing to boast
[14:17] about except his need for God. And that humility is what
[14:22] justified him. So the whole point here is that
[14:24] the Pharisees, the poster child for the devil's favorite lie, He
[14:28] measured himself against other people.
[14:31] He declared himself good and missed the fact that he was
[14:35] still far from God. And if we're honest, that
[14:37] parable is probably how we live out our lives.
[14:40] Because how many times do we pray like that Pharisee without
[14:43] realizing it? God, I know I messed up.
[14:45] Sometimes at at least I go to church.
[14:47] Sometimes at least I try and be a decent human being.
[14:50] But Jesus is showing us that prideful goodness isn't what
[14:55] saves us. Humble repentance is.
[14:58] It's not about showing off your spiritual resume.
[15:01] It's about recognizing your desperate need for mercy.
[15:05] And that leads us right into the heart of it all, which is sin.
[15:10] Because if we stop it, I'm a good person.
[15:12] We never actually face the reality of sin.
[15:15] We never confront how serious it is.
[15:17] And if we don't see the seriousness of sin, we will
[15:20] never understand why we need salvation in the 1st place.
[15:24] So let's go there. Let's talk about the reality of
[15:27] sin and why good enough will never save us.
[15:30] And this is where the devil's lie.
[15:32] I'm a good person does the most damage because if you believe
[15:36] that, you stop taking sin seriously.
[15:39] You minimize it, you excuse it. You say things like, well, of
[15:42] course I've messed up, but who hasn't?
[15:45] I haven't killed anyone. I don't do anything really bad.
[15:49] God knows my heart. But Scripture doesn't leave us
[15:51] that option. Romans 323 lays it out in black
[15:55] and white. All have sinned and fall short
[15:57] of the glory of God. All.
[16:00] Every single one of us. Not just the worst criminals,
[16:03] not just the people that we in society have labeled as bad, but
[16:07] all. And sin isn't just a little
[16:10] mistake or a minor slip up. Sin wounds us.
[16:13] Sin separates us from God. And that's what mortal sin is.
[16:18] Spiritual death. And here's the part we forget.
[16:22] Spiritual death is even more serious than physical death
[16:26] because our bodies will all eventually die, but our souls
[16:29] are eternal. And so that's why saying I'm a
[16:32] good person is so, so dangerous. It tricks us into thinking sin
[16:37] isn't really a problem for us. It blinds us to the seriousness
[16:42] of the separation that it causes.
[16:45] Imagine someone drowning in the ocean.
[16:47] There's so many ocean analogies today.
[16:49] Someone drowning in the ocean and you throw them a life
[16:51] preserver and they wave it off? No thanks, I'm a good swimmer.
[16:54] I'll be fine. I'll make it.
[16:55] I'll make it to land. You'd be like, take the help.
[16:59] That's what happens when people say I don't need confession, I
[17:02] don't need Jesus. I'm a good person.
[17:04] I don't need to go to Mass. They're drowning in sin, but
[17:07] they refuse the only thing that can actually save them.
[17:10] The truth that we can't afford to ignore is that if being good
[17:14] was enough, then Jesus didn't need to die.
[17:18] The cross makes no sense if all God wanted from us was to just
[17:23] try hard and be decent. But the crucifixion happened
[17:27] because our sin was that serious, because good enough was
[17:31] never going to save us. The cross is proof that sin is
[17:35] deadly. It's proof that salvation
[17:37] requires more than human effort. It requires grace.
[17:41] Grace that only comes through Jesus, Saint Augustine once
[17:45] wrote. You have made us for yourself, O
[17:47] Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.
[17:52] That's the truth that sin tries to cover up.
[17:54] Our hearts will never find peace in our own goodness.
[17:58] They only find peace in God's mercy.
[18:00] And the only way to receive that mercy is to repent, to turn to
[18:04] Him and embrace the salvation that He offers us through the
[18:08] sacraments. So it makes sense why the devil
[18:11] loves this I'm a good person lie.
[18:14] He loves it so much because if he can convince us that we're
[18:16] fine, that we don't need saving, you'll never run to the Savior.
[18:20] You'll never experience the freedom of forgiveness.
[18:24] You'll never grasp the power of the cross.
[18:27] And honestly, I think that's why there's so much spiritual
[18:31] complacency today, because too many of us are convinced that we
[18:35] are good enough and that's what's going to get us to
[18:37] heaven. We forget the reality that good
[18:40] enough is not going to get us there.
[18:43] Only grace will get us to heaven.
[18:45] And if you want to see the proof, look around.
[18:48] Look at the way people live when they believe this lie.
[18:51] Because the fruit of I'm a good person shows up in our lives, in
[18:55] our habits, and in our faith or lack of faith.
[18:59] So let's talk about that next. The fruit that this lie
[19:02] produces. What actually happens when
[19:04] people buy into this lie when I'm a good person, is the
[19:08] measuring stick. I mean, the evidence is
[19:11] everywhere. It's in the person who hasn't
[19:12] been to confession in 20 years because deep down they believe
[19:16] they don't need it. I've never killed anyone, so
[19:18] what's the point? It's in the Catholic who only
[19:20] shows up for Christmas and Easter and even then half
[19:24] heartedly saying God knows my heart, he knows I love him.
[19:27] I don't need to be at Mass every Sunday.
[19:29] It's the way we excuse gossip and greed, lust, anger,
[19:34] laziness. All of those sins we label as
[19:37] little because compared to the big sins, they don't feel like
[19:40] such a big deal. And this isn't about us not
[19:43] sinning. I don't want anyone to feel they
[19:46] are guilty of some of these sins and then say to themselves, Oh
[19:49] my gosh, this lady's talking about me.
[19:53] No, what I'm saying is those people who excuse all of these
[19:56] sins, excuse their behavior, do not repent.
[19:59] If you fail and you seek repentance and you go to
[20:01] confession and you are trying your best, that's what you need
[20:04] to be doing. So this obviously doesn't apply
[20:06] to everyone, but it applies to some of us.
[20:09] It applies to a lot of people we know.
[20:12] And that's the whole point. We want to make sure that we
[20:14] don't rationalize and normalize this as an everyday aspect of
[20:19] our lives and of our faith. We can't be looking at these
[20:21] sins, these little sins, these big sins, and labeling them as
[20:24] such. We don't want to brush them off
[20:26] with I'm a good person. I'm not perfect, but I'm good
[20:30] overall. That's what we don't want to do
[20:33] because that's the lie that we'll start to produce
[20:37] lukewarmness. And you know how I feel about
[20:40] lukewarmness. That is deadly.
[20:42] It's deadly. Lukewarmness will kill you
[20:46] spiritually. Revelation 316, I'll probably
[20:49] say this every episode because you are lukewarm, neither hot
[20:53] nor cold. I will spit you out of my mouth.
[20:55] That's the harshest language that I it's the most striking to
[20:59] me. Lukewarmness is the sole reason
[21:01] that this podcast exists. That slow fade away from God
[21:05] that I experienced, that I'm sure all of us have experienced
[21:08] at some point, you know, And it doesn't look like rebellion.
[21:10] I've never rebelled against God. It doesn't look like shaking
[21:14] your fist to heaven. I've never done that, but it
[21:17] looks like coasting that one, that one.
[21:20] I'm guilty of two decades full of coasting and settling and
[21:24] telling myself that I'm fine when I wasn't.
[21:27] The devil doesn't need to turn us into atheists.
[21:29] He doesn't need us to become Satanists.
[21:32] He doesn't need us to actively hate God.
[21:34] He just needs us to stop chasing him.
[21:37] He just needs us to settle for good enough.
[21:40] Because when you live in that mindset, we stop going deeper.
[21:43] We stop examining our conscience, we stop repenting,
[21:46] we stop hungering for holiness, and we become spiritually
[21:50] asleep. And maybe you've seen this in
[21:53] yourself or in your family or your friends.
[21:55] That slow drift into complacency, that shrugging off
[22:00] of sin. Don't worry, you're a good
[22:03] person. That's the fruit of the lie.
[22:06] It numbs us and blinds us and makes us feel safe when we are
[22:11] in danger. So how do we know if this lie
[22:13] has taken root in our own life? How do we spot it?
[22:17] Best way is to get practical to look at the real life.
[22:21] I'm a good person but moments because that's where the truth
[22:24] will start to show. I'm a good person, but I don't
[22:27] go to Mass every Sunday. Think about that.
[22:29] That's the third commandment and it's clear keep holy the
[22:33] Sabbath. The church teaches that skipping
[22:35] Mass without serious reason is a mortal sin.
[22:38] But how many brush it off by just saying God knows my heart,
[22:42] I'm still a good person, or I'm a good person, but I'm living
[22:46] with my boyfriend or girlfriend outside of marriage.
[22:49] Cohabitation is so normalized in our culture that people don't
[22:53] even blink at it anymore. But the church is clear God
[22:57] designed sex and marriage to go together.
[23:00] Living outside of that covenant isn't just a lifestyle choice,
[23:03] it's a sin. But again, people excuse it.
[23:06] While we love each other, we're committed, we're good people.
[23:09] Or I'm a good person, but I gossip here and there.
[23:13] Maybe you don't even think twice about the conversations that
[23:15] work in Group chats, even with family, the subtle tearing down
[23:20] of someone's reputation. But gossip destroys community.
[23:24] It kills charity. Scripture literally calls the
[23:27] tongue a fire that can set the whole course of life on fire.
[23:31] And yet how often do we excuse it with But I'm not a bad
[23:34] person. Hello.
[23:37] We do it all the time. I've done it.
[23:38] I've done it so many times. Or how about I'm a good person,
[23:42] but I struggle with pornography? This one is huge.
[23:45] So many people excuse this as a private sin and even if they're
[23:48] ashamed by it. But pornography destroys purity,
[23:52] rewires the brain, and treats people made in the image of God
[23:56] as objects. It devastates marriages and
[23:58] spiritual lives. And still the excuse comes I'm
[24:01] not hurting anyone. I'm still basically good.
[24:05] You know, you, you see the pattern, the lie that slips in
[24:08] every time we use I'm a good Person as a shield to avoid
[24:12] dealing with sin. It keeps us from repentance.
[24:15] It numbs the seriousness of the choices that we're making.
[24:20] Being a good person does not erase your sin.
[24:23] It does not excuse disobedience. It doesn't replace the grace we
[24:28] need. God never called us to be good
[24:31] enough. He called us to be holy.
[24:33] And holiness does not mean perfection.
[24:36] It means humility. It means repentance.
[24:38] It means picking up your cross day in and day out and following
[24:42] Jesus. It means choosing obedience when
[24:45] it's uncomfortable, confessing your sins, and letting God's
[24:48] mercy actually transform you. That's what separates holiness
[24:53] from goodness. Goodness says I'm fine and
[24:56] Holiness says God, I need you. And that brings us to the final
[24:59] piece, the wake up call. Because at the end of the day,
[25:02] this isn't just about avoiding the lie.
[25:04] It's about embracing the truth. The truth that God doesn't want
[25:08] you to settle for good enough. He wants to make you holy.
[25:12] So let's land there with the invitation that changes
[25:15] everything. God did not put you on this
[25:17] earth to just be a good person. He put you here to be Holiness,
[25:22] and holiness is not about being nice.
[25:25] It's not about being well liked. It isn't about checking off some
[25:29] minimum standard. Holiness is about
[25:31] transformation. It's about letting Jesus Christ
[25:35] change you from the inside out. The Saints are proof of this.
[25:40] They weren't remembered because they were good people.
[25:43] Plenty of good people have lived and died without leaving a mark
[25:48] on eternity. The Saints were remembered
[25:50] because they were holy, because they surrendered everything.
[25:55] Saint Augustine, before his conversion, he was not a good
[25:59] person by anyone's measure. He was consumed by lust and
[26:04] pride and vanity. But when he encountered Christ,
[26:08] he didn't just become better, he became new.
[26:12] He became holy. Take Mother Teresa.
[26:15] She was not canonized because she was nice.
[26:18] She gave her life, her whole life away for the poorest of the
[26:23] poor, seeing the face of Christ in the broken and the dying.
[26:27] That's holiness. That's what it looks like when
[26:30] you live fully surrendered to God.
[26:32] Holiness is not reserved for Saints and stained glass
[26:35] windows. It's your calling, and it's my
[26:38] calling exactly where we are, in your home, in your workplace, in
[26:41] your daily life. God is calling you beyond good
[26:45] enough into the radical adventure of holiness.
[26:48] So what does that look like for you today?
[26:50] It looks like confession, not once in a lifetime, but
[26:54] regularly. It looks like receiving the
[26:56] Eucharist worthily, knowing you're encountering the living
[26:59] God. It looks like daily prayer, even
[27:01] when it's boring and inconvenient.
[27:04] It looks like small acts of sacrifice, obedience and charity
[27:08] done with great love. Holiness does not start with
[27:12] perfection. It starts with humility, with
[27:14] admitting God. I cannot do this on my own.
[27:17] I need you. That's the cry that shatters the
[27:20] lie. That's the cry that opens the
[27:23] floodgates of mercy. So the bottom line, being a good
[27:27] person might keep you out of trouble, but only holiness will
[27:31] get you into heaven. And that's why the devil loves
[27:34] this lie, because if he can keep you stuck in good enough, you
[27:39] will never chase holiness. God has something greater for
[27:42] you. He doesn't want you to just be
[27:44] nice. He's asking you to be holy.
[27:48] And as first Peter 116 says, be holy, for I am holy.
[27:54] That's the invitation. That's the standard, and it's
[27:58] not impossible. The same God who commands it is
[28:02] the God who gives you the grace to live it.
[28:05] So the question for you is pretty simple.
[28:09] Are you going to settle for being a good person or are you
[28:12] going to answer the call to be holy?
[28:14] At the end of the day, only one of those choices leads to
[28:17] eternal life. That's it for today's episode of
[28:20] Aftermath. If you have been living in the
[28:23] comfort of I'm a Good Person, I hope this episode shook you up a
[28:26] little bit. Not to discourage you, but to
[28:29] wake you up to the life that God is really inviting you into.
[28:33] Being good will never be enough, but holiness, that's what you
[28:37] were made for. So don't settle for decent or
[28:40] comfortable. Don't settle for good enough.
[28:43] Run to confession, receive the Eucharist, pray, live a life of
[28:48] holiness. Because at the end of the day,
[28:50] only holiness will get you into heaven.
[28:53] And if this episode spoke to you, share it with a friend who
[28:56] maybe needs the reminder too. And if you have questions or
[28:59] struggles or a story that you want to share, send me an
[29:02] e-mail. I would love to hear from you at
[29:04] the aftermathpodcast@gmail.com. Thank you so much for being
[29:09] here. Thank you for listening, and
[29:11] thank you for chasing Holiness with me.
[29:13] I'm your host, Anna, and I will see you Aftermath.

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