Some people drift through life with no clue why they’re here. We’ve most likely met the lost souls who live for the “now,” wonder what comes next after death, and ponder whether the time spent here on earth has any meaning at all. Their definition of “righteous” may be shaped by popular culture, and they have no concept of salvation or eternal things. These are the people Jesus came to save; studying God’s Word has a powerful way of putting meaning and context back into empty lives.
Life isn’t a dress rehearsal, and our lives aren’t just some kind of cosmic practice session or run-through. This may be a serious wake up call for some of us. The world’s religions tell us we must do good things to be considered righteous enough to work our way into heaven. The truth is that faith in Christ—not in ourselves—is what makes us righteous in God’s sight. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).
We all aspire to do good things, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, our faith, not our doing, is what matters most to God. “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29). We don’t have to work hard to earn our way into heaven, but simply to believe in God’s love as expressed through Jesus Christ.
There is a heaven, and our lives right now determine what happens later. Thankfully, God didn’t leave us to our own devices to guess what course of action we should take; He gave us His Word. Studying it always brings us back to the role faith plays in salvation. “And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith” (Genesis 15:6, NLT).
Concerning our salvation, God left nothing to chance. Before Jesus’ death and resurrection, the righteous were those who kept all the rules and commandments; this was what Jesus told the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-19). Afterward, the focus shifted from doing to believing. “And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31).
What we believe drives how we live our lives. We’re not the result of a biological accident from slime that oozed up onto the shore millions of years ago; God made us carefully and deliberately. “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness… So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:26, 27, NKJV). We are not our physical bodies; God made us much more than that.
The philosophy that we’re just a collection of skin, bones, muscles, and tendons powered by electrical impulses robs us of the knowledge of who we really are. We are spirits living in physical bodies and possessing souls. We can choose to believe either what the world says about us, or what God says about us. “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith” (Galatians 3:26, NIV).
Accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior changes our present lives as well as our final destination. It allows God to begin working in us to reveal our new identities as His children, and gives our lives focus and purpose. When we know who we are and whose we are, we’ll never again drift aimlessly.