“Man…is of few days and full of trouble” (Job 14:1).

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

“…it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

All bad news. 

So what’s to be done?

How can we get out of this mess?

Abraham shows us how. 

Abraham was the father of the Jewish people. His wife, Sarah, could not have children. And she was becoming too old now anyway to have children. 

But God appeared to Abraham and told him to look at the sky and number the stars (Genesis 15:5). God promised Abraham his decedents would be as numerous as the stars.

Then what?

“Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3).

To be “counted” means to take something that belongs to someone and credit it to someone else’s account. Abraham did nothing to accumulate righteousness. God simply credited it to him. God took his own righteousness and credited it to Abraham as if it were actually his. This God did because Abraham believed.

Now here’s the beautiful part for us: “for our sake also, …it will be counted, as those who believe upon Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over on account of our transgressions, and was raised on account of our justification” (Romans 4:24-25).

It’s like this: Imagine two books. Both have only blank pages. God gives one book to Jesus. He gives the other book to me. Every time I sin I must make a black mark in my book. And every time Jesus sinned during his life on earth, he had to make a black mark in his book.

Soon my book has a lot of black marks. It even becomes difficult to find enough blank space to make other mark. But Jesus’ book remains blank. No black marks at all.

Then I believe God. I repent of my unbelief and put my faith in Jesus as the Savior I need. I believe he died on the cross for my sins.

So God takes the book of Jesus’ life and gives it to me. He gives me Jesus’ righteousness in place of my sin. God “counts” me as righteous in Jesus.

God takes my book full of black marks and gives it to Jesus. Jesus can accept it because he paid for all my sins when he died on the cross.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

It doesn’t get any better than that.

Sarah eventually gave birth to Isaac at age 99. And the rest, as they say, is history. God kept his promise to Abraham.

Amen