How do unholy sinners, people like you and me, find a right standing before a holy God?
Since a person is justified by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, we can live the life that God has created and called for us to live in Jesus Christ.
1. Are you relying on who you are or what you’ve done for your right standing before God?
“There is such a thing as Christian presumption: presuming upon the grace of God because we’ve taken part in some practice of the Christian faith.” —Todd A. Wilson
“We sometimes make it sound as if the inherent lovability of the person is what drives God to save; it’s as though God would be crazy to have not saved us because of how lovable we all are. But this actually inverts the truth of the gospel and leads to a peculiar form of Christian presumption. We’ve inadvertently lost sight of the fact that God shows his love for us in this: ‘While we were still sinners, Christ died for us’(Romans 5:8).” —Todd A. Wilson
2. Are you convinced that Jesus’ death on the cross is the only reliable basis for your right standing with God?
“It is the good news that sinful men and women may be brought into acceptance with God, not because of their works, but through the simple act of trust in Jesus Christ.” —John Stott
“Justification is the gracious act of God by which God declares a sinner righteous solely through faith in Jesus Christ.” —David Platt
“Justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which he (1) thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, and (2) declares us to be righteous in his sight.” —Wayne Grudem
3. Are you trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your right standing with God?
4. Are you living in the good of the gospel?
“Once we have been united to Christ in his death, our old life is finished; it is ridiculous to suggest that we could ever go back to it. Besides, we have risen to a new life. In one sense, we live this new life through faith in Christ. In another sense, it is not we who live it at all, but Christ who lives in us. And, living in us, He gives us new desires for holiness, for God, for heaven. It is not that we cannot sin again; we can. But we do not want to. The whole tenor of our life has changed.”— John Stott
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”—Galatians 2:20