As I travel on different roads, occasionally there are signs saying, “Get right with God!” This is still preached on Sundays in some churches and implied in many others. The question is this. Christian “Do Christians need to get right with God?”
To get right with God means you are “wrong” with God. For those who are still in Adam, they are unsaved and as a result, are genuinely wrong with God. They are loved by Him but not acceptable to Him. They are unforgiven, God’s enemies, sinners, spiritually dead, and children of wrath. In other words, they are unrighteous in every way. Romans 3:10 sums it up this way, “There is none righteous. No not one.”
That person is in great need of God’s salvation. At their moment of faith placed in Jesus Christ, every issue above is removed and replaced with being right with God forever! To be made right with God means this person receives eternal forgiveness and unconditional righteousness from God. That changes everything such that God loves and accepts them.
Romans 5:1 explains it this way, “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The word “justified” is derived from the same root word as “righteous.” When we understand this, the Scripture says that we have been completely forgiven and made righteous before God. This is something that has already happened to us in Christ!
Let’s be sure our understanding is complete. All our forgiveness is in Christ. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” Because you are in Christ, you are resting in the ocean of His eternal forgiveness! Past, present, and future sins have been removed.
His righteousness is who you are in Christ, not just something you possess. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come, (“2 Corinthians 5:17). Four verses later God says this about you. “He {God the Father} made Him {Jesus Christ} who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” The brackets are mine for clarity, but do you see it? We have become someone so new that God has given us His own righteousness. We can say with confidence. “I am the righteousness of God in Christ!”
What about when we sin, though? Does that mean we are not right with God at that time? Not at all. God is not holding that sin against us because it’s already forgiven, and we remain 100% righteous in Christ. So if the Spirit shows us a specific sin or sin pattern, we can confess it to God, thanking Him that our “rightness” with Him is intact. This is why it’s called “grace”!
Why don’t you thank God now that you are and will forever remain right with Him?
Live Free in Christ!
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
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