“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Romans 3:21–25, ESV).

Several of my recent posts have addressed the believer’s need for confession and repentance. These do not tell the full story of salvation. However, they lay a firm foundation for one to come to faith in Jesus Christ. True Christian faith must begin from the perspective expressed in Romans 3:23—“all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God….”

Jesus came, died, and rose again because all of are sinners who need forgiveness. We need redemption; we need propitiation by His blood. Far too many professed Bible-believing Christians have not accepted the biblical Christian gospel, but a heretical distortion of it which some have called moralistic therapeutic deism (or MTD). I gave a more detailed summary of this worldview in Faith and Provision. (I urge readers who are not familiar with this term to read the section of that post which describes MTD; a more detailed description can be found on Wikipedia.) Many Christians talk, think, and live as if Jesus’ purpose was to give us our “best life now,” to offer us purpose and personal satisfaction. They are seeking what humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow called “self actualization.”

Jesus did not come into this world, live, die, and rise again so that we could achieve self actualization. He did not come to give us a sense of self-satisfaction. He came because all of us have sinned in some way. We all need forgiveness, justification, and redemption.

Let us emphasize that all have sinned. We may be tempted to think that “I am not so bad because I have not committed sin X or sin Y.” For example, I may not be a murderer, child molester, rapist, terrorist, or some other big-league sinner. Maybe my sins are less controversial, more common, or more socially acceptable. The Scripture reminds us that we have fallen short of the glory of God: That is our standard. God is our standard of righteousness: not Adolf Hitler, or Jeffrey Dahmer, or Osama bin Laden. Although I may not be as bad as Hitler, I am not as good as Jesus. Therefore, I need His forgiveness.

May God give each of us the courage to recognize that each one of us is a sinner, and we need His forgiveness to receive the eternal life that He offers us. If we can begin from that perspective, we will be open to receiving the free gift of salvation on God’s terms. For those of who are followers of Christ, we must remember day-by-day that He came to save us from our sins, not from our low self-esteem or sense of purposelessness.

This post copyright © 2016 Michael E. Lynch. All rights reserved.