If We've Only Got One Life…

Exercises In Self Justification

At the core of the Gospel that so many of us affirm is justification by faith: we are justified externally not based on our own merits but based on Christ’s merit – he was punished for our sin and he lived the righteous life we could never live.

It’s easy for me to try to forget this and try to justify myself.  How does it look?  Often it goes like this: I sin, and I feel bad about my sin, so to make myself feel better, I remind myself of myself – of the good things I’ve done, the things I’ve done that should make me feel good about myself.  I caught myself doing this just now… trying to deflect feelings of shame and guilt by reminding myself how super I am and about all the things I do right.  I try to make myself acceptable – in my own eyes, in others’, and in God’s – by appealing to my own works.

So sinful.  So unbiblical.

My righteousness gets me nowhere. Isaiah 64:6 says, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

Christ’s righteousness is what gets me to heaven.  And it deals with guilt and shame and inadequacy and fear in ways that appealing to my own righteousness was never meant to.

“And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” – 1 Cor 1:30

To deal with sin, we remind ourselves of Jesus, not ourselves.

-Ben