Just as if I've never sinned.....

Last week I was at my mother's house when a tornado warning was issued. Since a recent tornado actually destroyed many homes in my hometown, my mother is taking tornado warnings a little more seriously than she ever has. She lives in a one level house so we got in her car and rode up to her church to wait out the storm. There were a couple of other people already gathered there in the church's basement and I was pleasantly surprised to see a friend I haven't seen in a long time. He was one of the first teachers Tim and I had in Discipleship Training classes and we learned so much from his teaching. He used great teaching tools to help us remember Bible truths; tools like acronyms (Forsaking All I Trust Him for FAITH, etc.). But the one that I remember most is the play on words that forever reminds me of the meaning of the word "justification." Justification means that when God sees me it is "just as if I've never sinned."

Romans 4:25 tells us that Jesus was "delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification." In other words, He was crucified so that our sins could be forgiven, but He was resurrected so that we could stand before God in holiness; just as if we'd never sinned at all!!!

The cross of Christ once and for all proved God’s love and mercy for me. He was sacrificed on the cross to pay for my sin. But the story didn’t end at the cross. The glory of the story is in the resurrection!!

Jesus was raised to life for our justification. The meaning of the word justification includes that we are “declared righteous”. The act of resurrection made a way for God to pronounce that believers in Christ are righteous, proclaimed so by His own declaration. If God says it is so, then it is so. We are righteous, because God declares that we are. The only one who was ever truly righteous was Jesus. He never committed a single sin. Yet I have been declared to be righteous in spite of all that I have done.

Picture this. It’s as if God took the record of my life – past, present, and future – erased it and in fact, even tore it out of the book of my life. Then He replaced my record with the spotless record of Jesus. All of the just causes for the legal condemnation on my life, charges that were punishable by death, were removed from me in an instant and I was given a clean slate.

The cleansing blood of Christ, extended by the grace of God, wiped my record clean. That thought alone is amazing, but something even greater took place. The record of Jesus was then credited to me. What an awesome exchange!! I am as clean as a whistle!!

Justification – what a wonderful word!! I am so thankful that my old buddy George Martens taught me the meaning of that word so clearly that I never forgot it. I learned it so thoroughly that as God taught me more and more about His grace I have been able to receive it, believe it, and be amazed by the extent of God's grace and His justification.

Do you realize that because of God’s mercy and grace you are not just forgiven at the point of your salvation? You are CLEAN!! Sin has not even left a stain on your standing before God. Have you fully grasped that? If not, ask God to bring you to a complete understanding of His thorough cleansing. Then thank Him for His cleansing power. Praise Him for the blood of Jesus that has washed you even WHITER than snow.