His official title is "Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Great Weather Prophet Extraordinary." Doesn't that sound like a weatherman you can trust? If legend is to be believed, Punxsutawney Phil, the official groundhog of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, has been predicting the weather for over 120 years. And according to the official website, Phil is never wrong. ¹

Every Groundhog Day, Phil is pulled from his climate-controlled, simulated tree-trunk burrow at exactly 7:25am. According to folklore, if Phil sees his shadow, everyone can expect six more weeks of winter.

But just how reliable is Phil? According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, he is accurate only 37% of the time. Even during the era of Phil's debut in 1886, the reliability of groundhogs as weather forecasters was questioned. The following quote is from a book called About the Weather, published in 1899.

February 2d [sic] is a day that has, and has had for ages, a curious degree of popular interest without any justification in fact that has been shown by American weather. It is an excellent illustration of how pleasing notions, once formed, will persist without reason for many hundreds of years.²

Pleasing notions that a groundhog can predict the arrival of Spring, or that falling stars can grant wishes, are fun and generally harmless. No one really bases any important decisions on these examples of folklore. We're much too sophisticated to be influenced by superstition and tradition . . . or are we? Consider this excerpt from a 2002 Barna poll:

Half of all adults (50%) argue that anyone who "is generally good or does enough good things for others during their life will earn a place in Heaven." . . . four out of ten Protestants accept this view of salvation ensured by good deeds.³

Can you earn your way into Heaven by good deeds? It is a pleasing notion, as well as a traditional belief for many people, but is it true? We all naturally think of ourselves (and our friends) as "pretty good people." Based on this, we predict that we will certainly come out ahead when God weighs our good deeds against our bad deeds on something like a cosmic moral scale. But who came up with this "scale" idea anyway? More importantly, is it true? Should we trust in this theological folklore? Not according to Jesus, who warned His followers about such a belief.

On that day many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?" And then will I declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." (Matt. 7:22-23)

These people worked hard in the name of religion and morality, but it wasn't enough. They were still too corrupt to pass through Christ's bar of justice. And they are not alone. The Bible says that none of us possess the personal righteousness required to enter into Heaven. We can't earn God's favor by any amount of good works or self-denial.⁴ Even if we give God the credit for making us righteous, it is not enough. The man who prayed, "God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers," etc., was doing just that—giving God the credit for making him righteous. But Jesus said this man was not justified (saved), while another man, one who humbly pleaded for God's mercy with no hope in any righteousness of his own, was (Luke 18:9-14).

Religious traditions and fanciful notions about cosmic scales aside, the Bible tells us that without God's gift of righteousness—the righteousness that comes from Christ—we have no hope. Theologians call this a foreign, or alien righteousness. Because Jesus kept God's law perfectly and then died on the cross, we can be saved. Through faith in Jesus, "God credits righteousness" to us, "apart from works" (Romans 4:6).

Paul explained it this way, "For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith" (Phil. 3:8-9).

Traditions can be fun, but should we really trust a groundhog to accurately predict the weather? Religious traditions may also have their place, but no one should rely on them to predict where they will spend eternity.

So what will you rely on when you stand before Him?

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