(An illustration from the Alpha Course): Imagine a scale against a wall that measured goodness, kindness and honesty. At the top are the best people who have ever lived and at the bottom the worst. Who would you put at the bottom? Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, or your boss, maybe! Who would you put at the top: Florence Nightingale, Nelson Mandela, or possibly Mother Teresa? And whereabouts would you put yourself – somewhere in between? The thing is no-one – no matter how good a life they live – can ever be good enough to live up to God’s standard, which is the ceiling; 100%. God’s standard is perfection and on that scale we all fall short. No one can ever be good enough; no-one can be perfect, not even Mother Teresa even though she lived an exceptional good life. Romans 3:23 puts it like this: ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’. In other words, no one qualifies because none of us are perfect. We all fall short, some more than others, of course!

Nicky Gumbel, recorded Alpha talks (DVD), session 3