God's Precious Gifts for YouSample

The gift of justification

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24).

God is a righteous judge. His judgment on humans is clear: we have all sinned and deserve death. This is a just sentence since God had warned humanity that they would have to die if they broke His rule not to eat the fruit of a particular tree in the Garden of Eden, which they did (see Genesis 3). And if we reflect on our behavior, we’ll have to admit that we fail to meet God’s standards every day of our life.

Every single human will die once and then appear before God’s judgment throne. Then we will be condemned for our sins unless we “are justified by his grace as a gift!” Jesus is willing to take our place and bear the punishment that we should get. He had done so when He died at the cross: “He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities… the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-6). Therefore, He can offer us justification as a free gift.

You are guilty, but if you trust in Jesus, you will be declared innocent and just since He has taken over your guilt.

Do you feel guilty before God? Do you accept His gift to be made free from sin?