True Faith

The Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”

Romans 4:3

IF YOU LOOK at Abraham’s life, you might wonder what was so great about his faith. After all, God visited him, spoke to him out loud, and was his friend. But those things happened after Abraham expressed his faith in God. When God called him, however, he obeyed, “without knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).

Faith is the essential ingredient. Some may ask, “Why do we need what Jesus did on the cross?” Basically, there are two things that happen the moment we express faith in him. First, we receive complete and final forgiveness for all our sins. They’re wiped away.

The second part of the faith transaction is that when we believe in Jesus, he not only wipes away our sins, promising never to hold us accountable for them again, but he also gives us something—his own righteousness. He takes our sins. He gives us his perfection, his good deeds, and his perfect life. That is how faith makes us righteous. By believing in God, as today’s Scripture verse says Abraham did, we gain the righteousness that results in God’s favor.

When you believe in Jesus, the promise is not only that you are cleaned up from all the gunk in your life but also that you are clothed in the white robes of righteousness.