Credited with Righteousness

In Romans 4, we see that Abraham was justified by faith. In order to illustrate this, the Apostle Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 which says that “Abraham believed in God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Paul is using the scripture to show how God credited Abraham with righteousness that was not of his own. More specifically, Paul says that God will also credit our faith for righteousness. Paul makes this clear in verse 23 when he says that “the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for Abraham’s sake alone, but also for ours.” Therefore, Paul is saying that this verse also applies to Christians. How cool is that? 

Like Abraham, I too was not a righteous person. In fact, I used to think that I was too far gone to receive God’s forgiveness. In 2018, God revealed to me that Jesus died for my sins too. This revelation is what prompted me to give my life over to God. I am grateful that God does not require us to be personally righteous. However, God does expect us to have faith in him. Therefore, we Christians must strive to be like Abraham, the man of faith. Then if our faith resembles that of Abraham, God also promises to impute our faith with his righteousness. None of this would be possible for us without Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross.