JUSTIFICATION
Justification refers to the act of becoming right with God so that it’s as of you’ve never done anything wrong. Now if you don’t believe in God then the term really has little meaning. Most people, however, including those who deny God’s existence, often refer to heaven or to meeting those who have passed away once again. The vast majority of people believe in some sort of afterlife in spite of the prevalence of teaching regarding evolution. Most, if not all cultures, since the dawn of man, have believed in an existence beyond one’s earthly life.That in turn implies a belief in a spiritual being and a need to somehow please such an entity.
Such efforts on the part of mankind have essentially known no bounds. To appease their gods, people have sacrificed young women and men, infants and children, and animals by the thousands. They have done self-mutilation, self punishment, deprivations, penances by the score and pilgrimages. And since sexual activity is pleasant, and therefore must be pleasing to the gods, sexual orgies on pagan temples were often part of man’s efforts to please “god”. Although some of this seems very bizarre today, man still does almost everything in his power to please and make oneself right with “god”. Most, if not all, religion is based on the premise that we can do enough right to rectify our wrongs and, therefore, make it to heaven, even if god is distant and austere or nearby and personal.
Yet the Bible states that “…God is holy” (Psalm 99:9) and that even though “he is a holy God. He is a jealous God” (Joshua 24:19). Furthermore, in Leviticus, God has said: “And you shall be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy” (Leviticus 20:26). But, no one fits that bill because “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23). Since the Laws were given to point out this sin and because “…it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail”(Luke 16:17), we have little hope of pleasing God by our efforts such as rules, rituals, sacrifices, feast days, pilgrimages, etc. “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10).
The Bible states it very clearly - “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). In 1Corinthians 15:56 it says “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law” while 1 John 1:8 states “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
So the crux of the matter is this: if we are full of sin and can’t keep the laws to make ourselves right with God, then making more regulations, rules, and/or rituals (aka more laws) won’t make it any better. That is why God Himself decided to forgive us by taking the punishment that we deserve upon Himself, as Christ, and all we have to do is accept the gift and grace that His gesture implies. By acknowledging that God, through Christ, paid for our discretions, and truly accepting that gift, we can receive that justification before Him that countless people throughout the ages have tried to do for themselves. True acceptance of His Gift means that what you do in His name, you do because you have been made right before Him and not to become so. It’s not complicated but in fact so simple that people reject it and try to do something themselves. We always seem to want it that way.
This Father’s Day what better gift to give to our Heavenly Father than to fully accept the gift that He has so graciously given to us and acknowledge the sacrifice He made by doing so. After all, it’s apparently all He really wants. It’s also something we all should carefully think about.
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