Meet Matt Pacholczyk

Picture this:

You are standing before the throne of God. There He is, the perfectly holy Judge wearing righteous robes. And there you are, ashamed and deserving of punishment for your "crime" of sin. You are in awe of just how far short you fall of His standard of perfection. And the perfect and holy God holds your judgment in His hands. Speechless, you await the verdict of "guilty."

But then, something unexpected happens. The holy Judge steps off His throne of perfection and down toward you. He takes off His righteous robe and puts it on your shoulders, and then He steps off to pay the penalty for your crime. There you stand. Righteous, holy, blameless before God.

How can God be both "just" and "the justifier" of the one who has faith in Jesus? How can He both punish sin and forgive us? We need to look to the cross of Christ for our answer. God couldn't simply forget about sin. He is perfectly holy, and every sin is a blatant offense against Him. He needed to deal with it. But instead of condemning us all, which is what we deserve (Romans 6:23), He sent Jesus into this world to live the perfect life we are incapable of living and to die the death for sin that we deserve. He took the penalty on Himself so we could be free (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus was the "propitiation" put forward by God for us that satisfied God's wrath (Romans 3:25). Whoever receives Jesus by "faith" is "justified," or declared righteous. Right now.

Daily, I have to fight the lie that I must "do more" or "perform" for God to gain His love and acceptance. It is difficult for me to believe that, once I have received Jesus Christ by faith, my identity is as a righteous son right now without doing anything else or needing more time to clean up my act. This is such a vital truth for us to grasp. If you have, by faith, trusted that Jesus paid the penalty for you, God sees you as righteous, now. And that will never change.