Wearing Christ's Righteousness

I don't usually draw. I used to use my sketch pad all the time, but I discovered that I liked hand lettering better....so I mostly stopped sketching for a while. But yesterday I picked up my sketch pad and pencil once again. I had inspiration in my head and I needed to get it on paper.  So here it is.

Look at the picture (top of page) before reading any farther. See if you can figure out in your own what that is a picture of.

It's supposed to be a skeleton wrapped in a white robe. Around his (or her) waist is a belt that reads "paid in full".

The face is left blank on purpose. For one, I'm not good at drawing faces. For another thing, its blank so that you and I can insert our own faces there. Because, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, this is you. And this is me.

In ourselves, we are dead. We are skeletons, nothing like we are supposed to be. We are dead in our trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2 tells us. We have no right to stand before the throne of a holy, perfect, sinless God.

But God. The two greatest words in the Bible. God sent his son so that we could be made right.

Now we can stand before the throne of God. It's as if Jesus' righteousness is wrapped around us like a robe. "This one is mine. I paid the price for this one to be redeemed," he says. We can stand before God's throne because Jesus has given us his righteousness. So when God sees us, he sees not the dead skeleton, the sinful us, he sees Christ's righteousness. He sees the perfect life Christ lived and the payment he paid.

Isn't that incredible?