I Am “Just as If I Never Sinned”

Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:1

Eric

One of the first trades someone made with Bitcoin is an unbelievable story. Laszlo Hanyecz was working his computer programming job, and he was hungry. Bitcoin was not worth any money at the time, but Laszlo posted online that he would pay with Bitcoin for two pizzas. Someone came to his place with two pizzas from Papa John’s, and he gave the person 10,000 Bitcoins. As we write this, that is worth 600 million dollars. Laszlo traded 600 million dollars for two pizzas!

Jesus made an even more amazing trade. When He died willingly on the cross, He took all your sin upon Himself. He traded your sin for His righteousness. Thanks to Jesus’ death and resurrection, you are now justified.

Justified isn’t a common word, but it’s a very important word. In the Bible, justified describes what God did for you when you placed your faith in Christ. A common and helpful way to remember what justified means is this:

Justified = Just-as-if-I never sinned

Because those of us who believe in Jesus have been justified, we now have peace with God. Instead of being at war with Him, we have confidence that He is for us. We did not always have peace with God. All of us have disobeyed God, rebelled against Him, and made ourselves His enemy. It’s not possible to find peace with God on our own—He had to make peace with us. He did just that “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Some people miss out on Jesus by thinking they are too bad, they have done too many things wrong, or that God would never want to be at peace with them. Not true. He is eager to welcome them into His family, and Jesus came to our world to make that possible. Some miss out on Jesus by thinking they are too good—that they don’t need Him. But all of us need to be justified to have peace with God.

You have been justified. It is just as if you never lied, never disobeyed your parents, never cheated, never lost your temper, never gossiped, never envied, never did anything wrong. God looks at you as if you have never once sinned! God sees you as perfect, not because you are, but because Jesus is, and Jesus has covered you. So you don’t need to live with shame because Christ put your shame to shame on the cross.

Eden

I hate to admit it, but I have made a couple driving mistakes. I got my license in December of 2023, when I had only been sixteen for two months. I was so excited to be able to drive myself to school, go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted (that didn’t actually happen!), and blast music in the car. It was a little scary for the first few days, but the taste of freedom helped me get over my fear pretty fast. I hit a few things in those first weeks, but no people. W for me! However, parking was not my specialty. One time, after leaving a birthday party, I hit a garage door. In my defense, it was in a very tight and dark alley. I called my parents, took a photo of the door, and left a note with my phone number.

Crazy enough, the lady called me, said she was grateful I left a note, and forgave me! She didn’t make me pay for anything. I was soooo grateful that I could save this money! I did not deserve the grace she showed toward me. She treated me as if I’d never messed up—never hit the garage—and my penalty was erased.

Jesus does this for us too, but on a much greater scale. We are justified—treated as if we have never sinned. He took on all our sin when He died on the cross. We are made clean and forgiven. As a teen, it’s such a relief to know Jesus looks at us as if we have never sinned or made one mistake.

The teen years are hard—trust me, I know it well. Because I am in them! There is a lot going on with school, sports, family, friends, relationships, and so much more. It’s hard to navigate life through these years. And we are not going to do it perfectly. We might talk back to our parents, make some mistakes with friends, fail a test, and maybe even hit a garage. But no matter what, Jesus will forgive us when we turn to Him. He covers our sins and washes us white as snow.

Reflection & Discussion Time

• How would you explain the word justified to a friend?
• Think of a time someone forgave you for something you did wrong. How did you feel?