“This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:22-24 NIV

There are some hard words in our verses for today. But we’ll look at each one to help you understand how God really sees you. We’ll look at faith, sin, righteous, redemption or redeemed, and justified.

The beginning is when you believe in Jesus. You believe that Jesus, the Son of God, lived. You believe that He died willingly on the cross for you. And you believe that He rose from the grave to give you life. That’s faith.

As humans we are not perfect, we have all done things that God would not like, like lying or disobeying our parents, or hurting someone else. That’s sin.

But Jesus was perfect, and He never sinned. He was good and always did what was right in God’s eyes. He was righteous. See the word “right” in righteous?

When Jesus died for you, He gave you redemption. Let’s say you owe your brother a dollar, but you can’t pay it. So, your dad pays the dollar for you. Your dad redeemed you by paying your debt. Jesus did the same for you when He paid for your life with His life. He saved you!

Our other hard word is justified. For this example, you push your sister down and she is crying. It seems like sin.  But then you show your sister the snake that she almost stepped on as it slithers away. What you did was right. Your action was justified. Even though you hurt your sister, you really saved her. Jesus justified you. Even though you sin (as we all do), through your faith in Jesus, God sees you as righteous just like Jesus.

This week understand that your faith in Jesus and all that He has done for you means that when God sees you, God doesn’t see your sin, He sees you as righteous because you are redeemed and justified through Jesus.

Blessings and faith!