“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins” (Romans 3:23-24).

Everyone has sinned and broken God’s law. When we trust our ability to keep God’s glorious standard, all of us come up short. What is the answer to our failure to live up to God’s standard? How can we be made righteous so we can meet God’s approval? Those are the most important questions each of us faces. Paul now clearly states the heart of the gospel. There is no better answer than the one he gives here. “Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.”

There was a penalty for our sins. God said that we would die. That doesn’t mean that we would cease to exist but it means we would be separated from Him. He couldn’t look at our sins. If only every believer would understand this sentence: “He freed us from the penalty of our sins.”

If I struggle on my own to be good enough, I will inevitably fall short. However, because of Jesus, I have access to righteousness because of His grace. “Freely makes us right” is the good news that what Jesus did for us is enough to satisfy God’s requirements. We qualify because of His Son, who is the only source of redemption. Will our behavior change? Absolutely! That means our nature changes and we grow into what He has already called us to be. The summation is that salvation is never a matter of our saying, “Look what we did.” It is our saying, and believing, “Look what Jesus did for me.”