Assessing Your Current Status Before God
Some tasks should rank higher than others on our “bucket lists.” My premise here is that assessing one’s station before Almighty God is of utmost importance. Eternal consequences are worthy of every soul’s consideration. The task itself is not complicated, but many avoid it, nonetheless.
Avoiding this self-examination may be telling about one’s fear of the truth. Many people fear condemnation, but they are unwilling to face the reality that they are condemned already (Jn 3:18). Simply put, they cannot believe God’s declarative revelations of the plight of man (Gen 6:5; Jer 17:9; Rom 1:18–32; 3:10–12; Jude 7; Rev 20:14–15).
The fact is that you were in a state of condemnation from the moment you were conceived (Ps 51:5). You inherited the sin of Adam (disobeyed God’s Word/Law) and the consequence was death and subsequent judgment for his actions. Adam poisoned his posterity with sin, as the federal head of humanity. Biologically, you were in Adam. Upon your arrival, having passed through many generations, sin manifested with your name attached.
Not only were you an heir to sin, but it was also your very nature to sin (Eph 2:3) because the controlling influence in your life, from the very beginning, was sin. Other sinners in the line of Adam (human race) then taught you to sin in ways you had not known before. Sin very evidently became your master. You were a slave to sin (Rom 6:6).
When people in your life began to teach you the rules, derived from the revealed Law of God, your rebel ways became evident. Your family began the process of shaping your identity and your practices for better or worse. Corrections were on a spectrum of non-existent to physical and emotional abuse. Good and godly parenting would serve at the ideal center of the testudinal arc of good, with evils on either side.
Next, society set boundaries of acceptable behavior, but sin pervades societies as it does families and every individual. Sin is lawlessness (1 Jn 3:4) and it is God’s Law by which all people will be held to account (Ex 20; Dt 5). When men legalize that which God forbids, there is no license for disobedience by freebooters. There is one Lord and His one immutable Law. The legislating of sin is simply foolishness on display.
God punishes sinners even if men do not punish iniquities. In addition, there is perfect justice with God. He always does that which is right, even when He pours out His wrath against ungodliness and unrighteousness (Rom 1:18–32). Further, He has established a day of final judgment in which guilty sinners from every age and place will be sentenced to eternal punishment for their crimes against Him (Acts 17:31; Jude 1:7). Again, His judgment is just, unlike men.
With your inherited sin from Adam, your sin nature, your sinful mind and flesh, along with the ongoing tally of crimes against the infinite majesty of God, how is your self-examination going for you? Maybe I should ask, as the Bible does, who will deliver you from the wrath of God to come (Mt 3:7; Lk 3:7)?
Before you answer that question, let me warn you that your father the devil is a liar and the father of lies (Jn 8:44; 1 Jn 3:10). He is the one trying to convince you that you are a “good” person and that your “good” works mean something to God. The Bible rejects this deception, declaring that you are not right before God and your good works are worthless (Is 64:6; Rom 3:10–12). You may object to God’s revealed assessment saying, “I do not believe that.”
Your opinion is worth nothing in these matters. In order to be right with God, you must consider His judicial opinion regarding your unrighteousness. The problem here is that you have been lied to about the grading standard and the required level of achievement. The truth is that in order to be “good” and “right” in God’s assessment you must not have any sin in your account. Friend, we all have inherited sin and we all practice sin. In fact, the longer you live on in the flesh, the more sins are being credited to your account. All this sin is why we all die, sooner or later.
It is appointed by God that each person will die once and then comes the judgment (Heb 9:27). That is your future. You and everyone else is on course to live and die and then be judged (2 Cor 5:10; Rev 20:11). You will be punished for your sins for eternity unless God has mercy on you and forgives every one of your sins, including your inherited sin from Adam. How can God forgive guilty sinners like you? There is only one way.
If God has determined to have mercy on you and save you from His wrath against you, for sins, then He will let you know that He has done so by His sovereign will and good pleasure (Rom 9:15–16; Titus 3:5). God will send one or more of His missionary messengers to bear witness of how God took your sins — all of them — and placed them on Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, when He suffered, shed His precious blood, and died on the cross (Acts 1:8; Rom 4:7; Col 1:14; 1 Pet 1:19; 1 Jn 1:9, 12).
By the blood of Christ shed for us, the chosen people of God received the full forgiveness of their sins. There is no longer God’s looming wrath nor condemnation against forgiven sinners (Rom 8:1). Jesus bore our deserved wrath and punishment in His body on the crucifixion tree (1 Pet 2:24). This revelation is not an offer or a choice for you to decide to accept or reject (Jn 1:12–13). Rather, it is the true reality of your status before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor 5:10).
Your trust is in Jesus, or it is not. You either believe this Gospel report or you do not. You are justified if you do, and you are not justified if you do not. My final recommendation is that you rejoice and give thanks to God for His free grace if you believe on Jesus, today. If you do not, then weep and mourn for your day of reckoning is coming sooner than you think.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
September 21, 2021
