How grateful would you be if trillions of dollars were credited to your bank account?
Romans 4:5 (NIV)
4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.
Listen to passage & devotional:
Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 22 - Our Justification Through Faith in Christ
We believe that
for us to acquire the true knowledge of this great mystery
the Holy Spirit kindles in our hearts a true faith
that embraces Jesus Christ,
with all his merits,
and makes him its own,
and no longer looks for anything
apart from him.
For it must necessarily follow
that either all that is required for our salvation
is not in Christ or,
if all is in him,
then he who has Christ by faith
has his salvation entirely.
Therefore,
to say that Christ is not enough
but that something else is needed as well
is a most enormous blasphemy against God—
for it then would follow
that Jesus Christ is only half a Savior.
And therefore we justly say with Paul
that we are justified “by faith alone”
or by faith “apart from works.”
However,
we do not mean,
properly speaking,
that it is faith itself that justifies us—
for faith is only the instrument
by which we embrace Christ,
our righteousness.
But Jesus Christ is our righteousness
in making available to us all his merits
and all the holy works he has done
for us and in our place.
And faith is the instrument
that keeps us in communion with him
and with all his benefits.
When those benefits are made ours
they are more than enough to absolve us
of our sins.
Summary
You likely have a good sense of the concept of compensation. You know that when you have someone provide a service for you, be it a haircut, a car wash, or a complex surgery, that you will need to pay the people who provide it for you. Likewise, when you go to work or sell your product, you're expecting to be paid for your efforts. When you are given a check, you might say thank you out of common courtesy, but you don't express the same gratitude you would if someone came up to you out of the blue with enough funds to pay off all of your debts.
But that's exactly what salvation is! In this case, we are the ones "who do not work." Most of us aren't used to being in this position. We don't like be given handouts, and prefer to pay our own way through life.
The problem comes when we extend that same attitude to our salvation. It's natural to assume that eternal life comes at a cost, and we'd just as soon pay that cost ourselves.
But we don't have this attitude simply because our work ethic is so much better than other people's. We want to earn God's justification ourselves so that we're not beholden to anyone else. Ultimately, we have this 'I'll take care of myself' attitude because we're selfish: we want to depend fully on ourselves.
Dig Deeper
Chances are you don't have a miraculous conversion story. You probably weren't living a lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll before suddenly being interrupted by the Holy Spirit. Ironically, that's why it's harder for people like us to truly understand Christianity. We like to think that since we've more or less kept ourselves on the straight and narrow, that there isn't much left for the Spirit to clean up for us. We earned most of our righteousness on our own, or so we like to think.
Understand that every good thing you have - especially your faith - has come to you as a gift from God, not because of the 'work' you've done to earn it. God justifies the ungodly, which is exactly what you would be were it not for His grace at work in your life.
You do have righteousness - perfect righteousness, in fact. But again, this isn't because you've lived a better life than others, but because it was credited to you through your faith (which was given to you as well). The word Paul uses here is an accounting term. Think of opening up your bank app and noticing that trillions of dollars had instantly been credited to your account. How grateful would you be then?
This is exactly what's occured for you: through your faith in Christ, you've been credited with the most valuable and important currency there is: the perfect righteousness God requires to be at peace with Him (Romans 5:1).
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who justifies the ungodly that trust in Him;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Thank God for this invaluable gift, and pray that your hard work will be an ongoing expression of gratitude for it;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Luke 13
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