TO BE SURE
SOMETIMES SPOKEN WORDS FALL SHORT, SO I WROTE THIS OUT – TO BE VERY SUCCINCT AND SERIOUS ABOUT LIFE.
Over 75% of Americans say in polls they believe Jesus is the Son of God. Fully 100% of demons, those fallen and evil angels, believe that also. So what is it God wants us to believe?
There are two huge aspects:
1. Jesus is the eternal son of God who lived a perfect life on earth, then died as a substitute for us. He was paying the holy penalty for my sins and yours.
“God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his death” —Romans 3:25.
In the Old Testament it was, “Put your hand on the head of the lamb, son.” (A parent said that— a symbol of faith, of placing your sins on the lamb who would die.). Jesus is called “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”! (John 1:29).
When we place our faith in Jesus the Christ, we are believing this – admitting our sins and trusting who he is and what he did for us when he died. And then arose from the dead to show it worked! 🙂
That is a deliberate decision of the will, to trust Jesus Christ and not ourselves.
That gets us from minus millions – I speak of my own sins – to zero! But no one goes to heaven with a zero. You have to be perfect to go to heaven. But wait! Perfect is a gift from God.
2, When we honestly place our faith in Christ, trusting for sure number 1 above, the Bible pronounces that our faith is counted as righteousness (Romans 4:5).
In other words, our faith brings a cover of the perfect and holy righteousness of Christ to be put on us in God’s sight. God sees us as perfect before him because we are believing in Christ, covered by the Savior, whose “bank account” of perfect righteousness is credited to us!
The Savior — this is gorgeous but hard to believe — counts us as one with him, and counts us in on his righteousness.
“This righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” — Romans 3:22.
It is almost unbelievable; for sure it is wonderful. It is called grace, a free gift. It is the direct opposite of our hoping we are good enough on our own, in front of a holy God.
So when we for sure trust Jesus Christ this way,
1. God counts his Son’s death as payment for our penalty. Paid in full!
2. More, he counts the 100% perfect righteousness of his Son as covering us in his holy sight.
Wow.
No wonder this is all called the gospel, the good news.
DO BE SURE.