Only the Good Die Young or the Only Good Died Young?

     So I have this problem; every time I lay down at night my mind races and I can't fall asleep. It likes to dive into deep thinking and wants to look for things that sometimes aren't there.Sometimes it's a pain getting to sleep but I don't mind, it's often where I have my best thoughts.  It's been doing this for as long as I can remember. I can remember even as a kid thinking of paradoxes and parables, dissecting and constructing thoughts. One night as a kid the phrase "only the good die young" kept me up. If only the good die young, then how young is young? For that matter, how old is old? What's good? How could I still die old but be considered good? You get the idea. Well, I heard this phrase in songs and in movies, so in my childish thinking they're had to be some sort of truth to it, I thought. It's only now that I'm older that I think there is truth there, it's just jumbled up. Rather than "only the good die young," it should be "the only good died young."

     Now you may be wondering what I mean by "the only good." You may be saying to yourself "well, I'm a good person," or "my grandparents are good people," or something of the like. To really understand what I mean by this we must turn to the Word of God.In Romans 3:10-12 it states,"as it is written: 'None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.'” Even more so than not being righteous, we are cursed. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them” (Galatians 3:10).

     So are we just hopeless, cursed to die? No, thankfully there is hope, the hope of glory that is Christ Jesus  (Colossians 1:27). Christ being God in the flesh through whom all things were made (John 1:1-3) Christ being divine and holy yet tempted in every way as man lived a sinless life (Hebrews 4:15) Being sinless, He bore our sins for us redeeming our curse by dying on the cross and becoming a curse for us (1 Peter 2:24, Galatians 3:13). For our sake He made Him who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

     Out of His mercy, love, and grace God provided us a way to be justified and redeemed. In Christ, He now sees us as righteous. More than that we receive the adoption of sons and daughters of God and are co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:14-17) We are the children of God! Now that's something to get excited about!

     Though we are not good in and of ourselves, we can be considered good through Christ, "the only good who died young" not as an old man but in His thirties, more than dying was raised and is now interceding for us at the right hand of God (Romans 8:34) Out of His love He did these things (John 3:16) and who shall keep us a way from His love? For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).