Morning By Morning #136

Everyone who believes is justified.

Acts 13:39

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

A believer in Christ receives immediate justification. Faith does not gradually produce this fruit over time, but produces it now. Because justification is the result of faith, it is given to a soul at the very moment he is saved by Christ and has accepted Him as his “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).

Are those who presently stand before the throne of God justified? Of course, but so are we! We are as truly and clearly justified as those dressed in white robes, as those who are even now singing melodious praises to the music of celestial harps. The thief on the cross was justified the very moment he turned eyes of faith to Jesus; the aging apostle Paul, after many years of service, was not more justified than was that thief who had no service at all.

Today we are “accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6 KJV) and absolved from sin. Today we stand acquitted before God’s court. What a soul-moving thought! Yes, there are some clusters of Eshcol’s grapes we will not gather until we enter heaven itself, but this is one cluster hanging over heaven’s wall. (See Num. 13:23.) This is not like “the produce of the land” (Josh. 5:11) we cannot eat until we cross the Jordan. It is not “the manna in the desert,” but “the bread that comes down from heaven” (John 6:49-50)—part of our daily nourishment provided by God for our daily activities.

Now—even now—we are pardoned. Now our sins are removed; now we stand accepted in the eyes of God as though we had never been guilty. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Not one sin remains in God’s Book—right now—against any one of His people. Who can dare to bring even one charge against them? There is no “stain or wrinkle or any other blemish” (Eph. 5:27) on any believer when it comes to the matter of justification in the eyes of the Judge of all the earth.

May our present privilege awaken us to our present duty—now. While we remain in this life, may we spend it—and be spent—for our sweet Lord Jesus.

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

Justification is a deep, and lofty, theological term—one with great meaning for believers. Essentially it means to be declared righteous by God in spite of my sins. It is a once-for-all change in my legal status before the Lord and is what puts me into a right-standing relationship with Him. Very simply put, it means God has made me righteous, not because of my works, but because of Christ’s work on the cross. Christ’s righteousness has become mine!

“To the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).” It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

“God made him who had no sin to be sin [or a sin offering] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Father, I thank You that I stand as righteous in Your sight and am no longer condemned in spite of all my sins. Help me, I pray, to offer my body as a living sacrifice, “holy and pleasing” to You, as my “spiritual act of worship” (Rom. 12:1).