Summary
God sees believers as unconditionally righteous, with no need to work for their justification in His eyes. This differs from the religious mindset that many of us have been taught, which says that we must labor to please Him, first, before He’ll accept or approve of us. What we believe makes a huge difference in what we do. What traps people in self-effort is their focus on what they must do to bring about their salvation, instead of what God has already done through Jesus Christ. Jesus, whose final words just before He died were, “It is finished,” is the crescendo to God’s conversation; He is God’s language and gives context to God’s thoughts. Everything we need for salvation comes from Jesus, with no contribution from us; it is His grace, His faith, and His righteousness. Our own faith has its good days and its bad days, but Christ’s faith is constant, consistent, and perfect; all we need to do is simply rest in it.
