The doctrine of imputation is one of the most under-taught teachings in the church today, and every Christian needs to know it. God credits to us the righteousness of Christ, and this comes through faith alone, which is also God’s gift to us in Christ (Eph. 2:8-9). Additionally, our sin is credited to Christ, who, though he knew no sin, was punished for the sins of all who trust in him for salvation (2 Cor. 5:21).

Here are 10 words every Christian should know—and be able to explain—in order to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).
1. Faith
Saving faith is not, as is commonly believed, a blind faith. There are three aspects of saving faith:

knowledge of Christ and his salvific work;

agreement that the claims of Christianity are true;

hearty trust in Christ alone for our salvation.

Faith is the instrument through which, by God’s grace, Christ’s perfect righteousness and atoning sacrifice are credited to us. It is God’s gift, not a work of any kind (Eph. 2:8-9). For more on the definition of faith, please click here.
2. Grace
Grace is one of God’s attributes. According to theologian Louis Berkhof, the grace of God in our redemption in Christ

is God’s free, sovereign undeserved favor or love to man, in his state of sin and guilt, which manifests itself in the forgiveness of sin and deliverance from His justice. (Systematic Theology, p. 427).

There is nothing we have done or could ever do to merit God’s grace. We receive it by God’s sovereign choice alone (Rom. 11:5-6).
3. Peace
There are two aspects to peace—objective and subjective. Just as two countries have a status of peace with each other through official agreements, so Christians are declared at peace with God through Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1). This means that we still have the status of peace with God regardless of how we feel or how well we keep his commands at any given time.
It is normal for Christians to still feel anxious in this troubled world and to feel a lack of peace from the sin in their lives. These feelings should spur us on to trust in God, repent of our sins, and seek to live in such a manner that honors our Lord. Christians should always be exceedingly thankful and find unfathomable comfort in the fact that the blood of Christ sufficiently atones for all their guilt and sin.
4. Cross
God in his perfection must uphold all his attributes. We cannot separate God’s love from his holiness, or his mercy from his justice. God must be true to all his attributes, because to do otherwise would be to deny his own self.
As theologian Michael Horton so aptly states in his book The Christian Faith, “God would not be God if he did not possess all his attributes in the simplicity and perfection of his essence” (229). Jesus was born in the flesh so he could fulfill the whole law and be the perfect sacrifice on behalf of all who put their faith in him (Heb. 10:11-14).
At the cross Jesus offered up his life as the perfect, once-for-all sacrifice for all who trust in him for salvation (e.g. John 10:14, 15). According to Horton we observe, “the clearest evidence of the complete consistency between God’s goodness and his sovereignty, justice, wrath, and righteousness in Christ’s cross” (p. 266). At the cross we see God’s “righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).
5. Law
According to theologian R. C. Sproul, the law is like a mirror: it shows us our sin, but it can do nothing to save us. In fact, the law condemns everyone who is not in Christ. Jesus was born in the flesh in order to be the perfect Son whom God had promised since the fall of Adam in the garden (Gen. 3:15).

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:3-4)

Jesus kept the law perfectly on behalf of all who trust in him for salvation, and they are counted righteous in God’s sight through faith alone by God’s grace alone.
The law also serves the purposes of restraining evil and showing us what is pleasing to God.
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Even though she made a mistake, God had a judgment of charity for Sarah. We too can say, “Lord, please bless this mess I made.” Sarah had her bad moments—don’t we all? Perhaps you have been hurt by the church or individual Christians in some way. It is good to have a judgment of charity in the church as much as possible, just as God had for Sarah. The Lord has a city that he has prepared for every believer, and one day all of God’s saints shall arrive there safely in glory.

Sarah had to wait until she was in her nineties to give birth to her son, Isaac. We can learn much from Sarah (formerly called Sarai) in the book of Genesis regarding what walking in faith in the promises of God looks like in real life.
1. In Genesis 11 we learn that Sarai is barren.
Because Sarai is barren, she is unable to participate in the promise of Genesis 3:15 that God would provide the seed that would crush the head of the serpent. In the culture in which Sarai lived, her husband Abram possibly could have divorced her on grounds of barrenness.

And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. (Gen. 11:29-30)

2. Sarah is not mentioned in Genesis 12-15 as the mother of the promised child of Abraham.
In God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 12 and 15, there is no mention of Sarai:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:1-3)
And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own sonshall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:3-6)

3. In Genesis 16 Sarai tries to participate in the promise of Genesis 3:15 through her servant Hagar.
Because she is advanced in years (in her 90s) and hasn’t provided Abram with an heir yet, Sarai gives Hagar to Abram as a wife in Genesis 16. Since nothing was mentioned in God’s promise about the heir coming through Sarai in Genesis 12 and 15, Abraham maybe thought taking Hagar as a wife was a reasonable “plan B.”

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain childrenby her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. (Gen. 16:1-3)

4. Sarai is acting out of faith, but she does the wrong thing.
In Galatians 4, Paul makes the point that Abraham and Sarai were trying to assist God in bringing his promise to fulfillment, adding a human ingredient in redemption, but God doesn’t need our help.

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. (Gal. 4:21-23)

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While some people pick and choose the verses in the Bible that they think are most important, God has given us every single word for a good purpose. Rejoice that the Bible is filled with knowledge of God and wisdom to live life well, but rejoice most of all that the Bible communicates to us God’s redemptive plan in Christ.

Some Bible translations print the words Jesus spoke out loud in red letters, which may lead people to think that those parts of Scripture are more important than others. Is this true?
Jesus is the Word of God.
Many people think that only the words Jesus spoke out loud during his physical time on the earth are his actual speech; yet, the Bible tells us that Jesus himself is the Word of God:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made….And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1–3, 14)

All Scripture is God-breathed.
The apostle Paul writes the following to his young charge, Timothy, about the divine authorship of the Bible:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16–17)

The entire Bible is God’s revelation to us.
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Christians can rejoice, even in times of discipline, that they are God’s children and their adoption into the family of God is secure. All Christians receive the double benefit of justification and sanctification by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Knowing the difference between the biblical categories of justification and sanctification is key for resting in Christ and understanding our duties as God’s children. Following is a basic definition of each word:
Justification
Without understanding how they are justified in Christ, Christians may wrongly think their own works, good or bad, could keep them in or out of God’s kingdom. The Bible says that we are declared righteous in Christ—this is a legal verdict and not something that God sees inside of us:

And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. (Rom. 4:5)
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom. 5:1)
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Rom. 5:8-9)

Christ has taken upon himself the punishment we deserve, and he has earned life for us by his perfect obedience to God’s law:

For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Rom. 5:17)

Even our faith is God’s gift to us (Eph. 2:8-9). Believers will never have to face God’s just sentence for their sins and spend eternity in hell separated from God.
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The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17)

We all need to hear the truth—and take it to heart. Truth brings freedom, and without it we are caught up in a web of deceit. Here are 25 Bible passages about truth (all Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version):
Jesus is the truth.

1. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
2. Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
3. Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. (Eph. 4:21)

God’s word is truth.

4. The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever. (Ps. 119:160)
5. “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17:17)
6. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Eph. 1:13-14)

The truth will set you free.

7. “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth.

8. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17)

The Lord is near to those who call on him in truth.
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Believers did nothing to earn regeneration and there is nothing they can do to become unregenerated. The Spirit indwells all true believers, and he convicts God’s children of their sin in his sanctifying work. No one will snatch Jesus’ sheep from his hand (John 10:28).

There exist the visible church and the invisible church.
The visible church consists of all who profess Christ as their savior.
Yet, Jesus states,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21)

Jesus also tells us what the Father wills:

“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40)

Professing to be a Christian does not necessarily mean that a person has been regenerated to new life by the Holy Spirit.
The invisible church consists of all who are regenerated to new life in Christ by the Spirit. Professing Christ does not mean one will endure to the end; having new life in Christ by the Spirit does mean one will endure to the end because the Spirit does not come and go depending on our level of faithfulness (Eph. 1:23-24). Once the Spirit has regenerated you and given you a new life, he keeps your life and preserves you forever.
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To concede that you are a good person is to wave Christ off—no doctor needed. But to bend the knee as sinners is to receive freely the everlasting healing of Christ: forgiveness, justification, and resurrection. Come to Jesus, the only doctor in life and in death, body and soul, for now and forever.

After Jesus calls the tax collector Levi (Matthew) to be his disciple, he goes to dine at Matthew’s house (Mark 2:14-15). The scribes of the Pharisees seize the opportunity to criticize Jesus for eating with immoral people:

And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” — Mark 2:15-17 (see also Matt. 9:10-13 and Luke 5:29-32)

Why is Jesus the “doctor exception” when it comes to spending lots of time with people who would be a bad influence under normal circumstances?
The scribes saw Jesus as an unworthy teacher.
In Mark 2 the scribes first condemn Jesus for breaking a moral principle of godly wisdom. As Psalm 1 states, you do not sit with scoffers.
Second, this condemnation of Jesus is a rebuke and warning to the disciples. The scribes are saying to them that it is folly to follow Jesus as he is influenced by sinners.
Third, they shame Jesus as being an unworthy teacher. If a teacher of righteousness hangs with sinners, then he does not deserve the title.
Jesus’ target wasn’t moral reform but rather healing people from sin.
Yet, Christ’s first coming was not concerned with the body; he deals with that in the resurrection. Also, Jesus is not a moral philosopher to conduct therapy classes on the virtuous life. Godliness and moral reform may be fruits, but they are not Jesus’ target. Rather, he came as a doctor for sinners. He came to heal us from sin.
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From the evidence we find in the Bible, the extra-biblical sources written so close in time to the events of the four Gospels, and the rapid growth of the Christian faith after the resurrection, Christians can proclaim with confidence that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God who was born in the flesh, was crucified, and was resurrected from the dead, and he is the firstfruits of all who belong to him.

1. If Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, then Christianity isn’t true.
The apostle Paul states the following in his first letter to the Corinthians:

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. (1 Cor. 15:14-15)

2. The gospel writers included embarrassing facts about the apostles.
The fact that the gospels include embarrassing accounts of the apostles, such as the fact that Peter denied Jesus three times and all the apostles abandoned Jesus when he was arrested, points to their authenticity. It is unlikely that people would fabricate an account that places themselves in a poor light (Matt. 27:57-60; Mark 15:42-46; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42).
3. The marble tablet known as the Nazareth Inscription points to Rome’s concerns about the upheaval caused by Jesus’ resurrection in the first century.
While we don’t know exactly when and where the tablet was discovered, it became part of a private collection in France in 1878 and has resided in the National Library of France, (Bibliothèque nationale, Paris) since 1925. According to Wikipedia,

The Nazareth Inscription or Nazareth decree is a marble tablet inscribed in Greek with an edict from an unnamed Caesar ordering capital punishment for anyone caught disturbing graves or tombs. It is dated on the basis of epigraphy to the first half of the 1st century AD. Its provenance is unknown, but a French collector acquired the stone from Nazareth. It is now in the collections of the Louvre.

The upheaval in the Roman Empire caused by the rapid growth of the Christian religion could well have been the underlying cause of this Roman edict that forbid grave-robbing.
4. Women were the first witnesses to see Jesus after his resurrection.
The testimony of women was not accepted in court in the first century in Israel. If someone were to fabricate an account of Jesus appearing to people after his death, the choice of women being the first to see him would be a very odd choice and serve only to reduce the credibility of the story (Matt. 28:1-10; Luke 23:55-24:11; Mark 16:1-11; John 20:11-18).
5. Every one of the twelve apostles died a martyr’s death except for John, who was exiled to the island of Patmos, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus and hung himself.
While people have been known to die for a lie because they believed it to be true, it is almost impossible to find someone who would die for a lie with the full knowledge that it was false. It is highly unlikely that the disciples would have given their lives for a claim they had themselves fabricated.
6. Written testimony of Jesus’ resurrection dates back to within approximately 20 years of the event.
According to New Testament scholars D. A. Carson and Douglas Moo in their book An Introduction to the New Testament, historical evidence indicates that the apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in which he writes about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was written sometime during the early to mid 50s.[1]
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It’s not only the Grinch—the truth is that each one of us knows all too well our own mistakes and shortcomings. And when it comes to finding someone to blame, the easiest person with whom to find fault is usually oneself. It’s not just you—every one of us has messed up. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20).

In the movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), there is a scene where the main character (played by Jim Carrey) goes on a monologue about his feelings of self-hatred:

The nerve of those Whos. Inviting me down there—on such short notice! Even if I wanted to go, my schedule wouldn’t allow it. 4:00—wallow in self-pity; 4:30—stare into the abyss; 5:00—solve world hunger, tell no one; 5:30—jazzercize; 6:30—dinner with me—I can’t cancel that again; 7:00—wrestle with my self-loathing… I’m booked!

It’s not only the Grinch—the truth is that each one of us knows all too well our own mistakes and shortcomings. And when it comes to finding someone to blame, the easiest person with whom to find fault is usually oneself. Here are twelve good things for Christians to remember when they are tempted to indulge in self-loathing:
1. It’s not just you—every one of us has messed up.

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Rom. 3:20)
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23)
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)

2. Jesus was born in the flesh to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:6-7)
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:3-4)

3. All who are in Jesus Christ are no longer under condemnation.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (Rom. 8:1-2)
For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Rom. 5:19)

4. Jesus gives believers mercy and grace.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:16)

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All humans are broken without Jesus, and, therefore, no one is any better than another. While the Christmas season can feel overwhelming due to complex and sometimes sad emotions, the message we all need to hear and steadfastly cling to is the gospel of salvation in Christ alone. There is true and enduring joy in the world for all believers, despite whatever we may be feeling right now. Regardless of the particular season in life you may be going through at present, because of Jesus you are no longer estranged from God.

External and internal pressures to be happy can be unrelenting during the Christmas season. From carefully curated holiday photos and vacation posts on social media to jolly Christmas songs and merry coffee cups, there is a prevailing narrative that people should feel a certain way during the holiday season. But what about those who are currently going through the loss of a loved one, loneliness, depression, illness, financial stress, a faith crisis, family issues, grief, job loss, and more? How does one interpret the joyfulness of the season through these all-too-common lenses, despite the genuine efforts of Christmas movies to bring the “feels”?
While not every person may experience the amazing transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, here are a few ways we can have small and honest renewals of heart and faith during this holiday season.
First, remember that Christmas is about Christ.
Keeping our focus on Christ’s first coming and what that meant for us is the first step to taking our minds off our own troubles and onto the person who conquered them all, including even our final enemy, death. While we will face a variety of emotions and difficult circumstances in this life, which God uses to grow us in humility, we should not be ashamed because Jesus experienced the ultimate humility and suffering on the cross.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, through he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself taking the form of a slave, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. (Phil. 2:6-8)

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