“That we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

To begin with, I never had any righteousness. I was born an unrighteous sinner. My life proves it. I still don’t have any righteousness of my own. That’s religious make believe; because I still sin. But, thanks be to God, He took care of it.

The first part of the verse says, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.” That’s what Christianity is all about. It’s about what’s called “imputation.” It’s a legal, economic term. It means to legally “put to another’s account.”

God the Father imputed my sins to His Son, Jesus Christ. They became His. He assumed my guilt and the penalty for my sins. He became my substitute. He provided for me a propitiation – an atoning sacrifice by His death on my behalf. He satisfied the just demands of God’s law by His sinless life. He bore God’s wrath for my sin. As the Apostle Peter said,

“For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in or that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (I Peter 3:18).

 And then, to begin topping off His innumerable blessings to me, He, by the Person of the Holy Spirit, re-generated my human spirit by coming to give me His life by indwelling me and making my spirit His human temple. As Jesus plainly said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63).

I was born dead in sin. God made me alive by His Spirit’s applying Christ’s atoning death and resurrection to give me life. I believed all of this because He granted me the capacity to see it, believe it, and rest upon it – now and forever.

Tell me, have you experienced that new birth, whereby you are made a partaker of the divine nature and trust in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection on your behalf? Believe it and be saved forever. Reject it and be damned for eternity.

“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

The narrow path leads to life in Christ. The broad road leads to eternal death in hell. Choose His righteousness and live forever in heaven. Choose to claim your own righteousness and suffer the torments of the damned forever in hell.

God gives you an indiscriminate proposal of mercy. Will you accept it?