Open your Bible and read 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 · ESVThis verse is the center of the whole thing, and it is worth reading twice slowly. He knew NO sin. At the cross He BECAME sin, all of it. And the offer running the other direction is that a person can BECOME the righteousness of God. Not act righteous. Not slowly improve toward it. Become it, as a status, handed over.
That is a trade, and it is lopsided on purpose. He takes what is yours. You receive what is HIS.
Understand what this means for the dirty rags. Nobody is asking you to bring a better version of yourself to God someday. The offer is that His approval of you would rest on Jesus' record instead of yours, permanently, which means it could never rise on your good weeks or fall on your bad ones.
If that is real, it is the most freeing sentence ever written. Does anything in you want it?
Do this today
Read 2 Corinthians 5:21 out loud three times and let the last word sit before you move on.
An honest thing to say to God
“God, I have only ever known approval I had to earn. I do not know what to do with this kind.”