God will not owe us eternal life. God justifies men and women as an act of love, an expression of His grace, a gift of His kindness.

When we work to win God's approval, we are asking God to give us heaven as a wage. God says "no." It is to him that worketh not but believeth on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."

The hymn writer put the first two characteristics together:

Let not conscience make you linger

Or of fitness fondly dream,

All the fitness God requires

Is that you sense your need of him.

There is a third characteristic of the people that God justifies and declares fit for heaven: Not only has every one of them admitted he is ungodly and realized that he is unworthy of what God bestows upon him, but any one with a right standing with God must take God at His word, believe God, put his faith in Jesus Christ.

Look at the sentence: "But to him that worketh not but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."

If you and I are justified on the basis of faith, if that's what opens the door to heaven, then what does it mean to have faith? The Anglican Bishop O'Brian defined faith by describing it: "He who knows what is meant by faith in a promise knows what is meant by faith in the Gospel. He who knows what is meant by faith in a physician, faith in a lawyer, faith in a friend, knows what is meant by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He who knows what is meant by faith in a remedy knows what is meant by faith in the blood of the Redeemer."

When I am ill, I go to a physician who examines me and writes out a prescription. One qualification for being a doctor is that he has to have bad handwriting. A second is that he writes out prescriptions in code that ordinary people can't understand. I take my prescription to a druggist who looks at it and then disappears behind a counter. Returning he hands me a bottle, "Here, take two three times a day." When I take that medicine home, I do not simply set it on a shelf and look at its beautiful red color. I take it. I trust that remedy to do what the physician says it will do. I appropriate it. If you know what it is to trust a remedy, then you know what it is to trust the blood of the Redeemer.

A friend of mine had a growth on his windpipe and he described his condition this way, "I'd like to get up and walk out of this hospital, but if I do that, I'll die. I'd like to reach in and grab hold of that thing and pull it out myself, but I can't. I've got to trust the surgeon." If you know what it is to trust a physician, you know what it means to trust Jesus Christ.

If you know what it is to trust a lawyer, you know what it means to trust Jesus Christ. Another friend of mine was accused of a serious crime. I asked him what he thought when he was first accused. He said, "The first thing that happened was that I got scared, and the second thing that happened was that I reached for the phone and called the best lawyer in the city." Then he said, "I had to trust him." That lawyer conducted an investigation and, when they went to court, my friend simply sat and allowed the lawyer to plead his case. The lawyer won the acquittal. If you know what it is to turn your case over to a lawyer, you know what it is to trust Jesus Christ.