OUR SAVIOR HAS MADE US RIGHTEOUS IN THE EYES OF THE FATHER
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“God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.” – Hebrews 10:10 –
We are called to be saints, members of God’s kingdom and family. God’s desire is for us to live with Him forever. Yet He reigns in absolute holiness. He cannot abide with sinners. God and sin can never coexist. He cannot take us into His holy presence without first removing our sin.
God’s perfection demands perfection to be in His presence. His plan for salvation, the mystery of the ages, was manifested in Jesus. We were sinners with no hope. We had no future of a life lived eternally in the presence of God. Jesus was destined to be our Savior, the way of salvation for all mankind.
Jesus took away our sin and gave us His righteousness, His holiness. Believers may not always grasp the absolute completeness of salvation. We are no longer sinners. Our Savior gave His life for our total forgiveness of sins. When we accept His work on the cross for us, our sins are forgiven for all time… past, present and future.
God sees us washed clean with the blood of His Son. We are righteous in His sight. The Holy Spirit infills our lives making us holy, pure, children of God. We are now justified, delivered from sin… spotless in the eyes of God. For if we were not holy, we could not abide in the presence of a holy God.
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” – 2 Corinthians 5:17
When we trust in Christ, we become new creations. We are made new, living new lives under grace. Our old sinful natures are overridden by His holy nature now reigning within us. We will still sin. Yet sin no longer enslaves us. We are no longer held captive by the desire to sin.
Through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, believers have been made holy. We have been irrevocably reconciled to God. Our identity is in Christ. We have His righteousness. He has made us worthy to abide in the presence of a righteous God.
“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” – Romans 8:1
God sees us as saints not sinners. When He looks at us, He sees the perfect work of His Son. We are spotless, blameless, holy in His sight. Saints are God’s chosen ones… those whose names are written forever in the Book of Life… those whose future is eternity with God.
All believers are saints, sanctified and delivered from sin. We are not to see ourselves as sinners, begging for forgiveness from a distant God. Sinners are slaves to sin. We have been set free. If God no longer condemns us, we are not to condemn ourselves. He no longer accuses us or counts our sins against us.
We need to view ourselves as God views us. We are the righteousness of God. He loves and accepts us as His own. The saving grace of Christ freed us from all sin. We have been delivered and are seated in heavenly places with Jesus (Ephesians 2:6).
The reality is God’s absolute love, acceptance and forgiveness of us. It matters not what we feel. What matters is how God sees us. Fact overrides feelings in the Christian life. That is why we live by faith not by feelings.
“You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” – Ephesians 2:19
Our Lord longs for us to live in the freedom and victory He won for us at so great a cost. We worship Him as our merciful Savior… and we need Him every moment of every day. That does not mean that we do not need to repent and keep our slates clean before Him, so that we are always in right standing before God.
Until we are glorified in Christ, we will not be perfect. Our sinful natures will well up within us at times. Yet through Christ, sin has lost its power over us. His Spirit now reigns in us. We can choose to overcome sin by His power and strength. We can choose to live a life led by the Spirit… a life that follows Jesus, set apart from the world, exhibiting kingdom values.
Let us then see ourselves as God sees us. Believe that we are saints in His sight and no longer sinners. Believe that Christ’s work for us was once for all. Believe that our identity and worth are in Him. Let us live as new creations in Christ.
