Welcome to this Daily PBJ devotional. Read 1 Chronicles 5 and 6, Zechariah 3 and John 18. This devotional is about Zechariah 3. Then the angel showed me Joshua the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebukes you, Satan. Indeed, the Lord, who had chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you. Is not this man a firebrand snatched from the fire? Now Joshua was dressed in filthy garments as he stood before the angel. So the angel said to those standing before him, Take off his filthy clothes. And he said to Joshua, See, I have removed your iniquity, and I will clothe you with splendid robes. Then I said, Let them put a clean turban on his head. So a clean turban was placed on his head, and they clothed him as the angel of the Lord stood by. Then the angel of the Lord gave this charge to Joshua. This is what the Lord of hosts says, If you walk in my ways and keep my instructions, then you will govern my house and will also have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these who are standing here. Hear now, O high priest Joshua, you and your companions seated before you, who are indeed a sign. For behold, I am going to bring my servant, the branch. See the stone I have set before Joshua. On that one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave on it an inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. On that day, declares the Lord of hosts, you will each invite your neighbor to sit under your own vine and fig tree. This is God's Word. One of the most important truths people need to grasp in order to understand our salvation is the concept of imputation. Imputation is a theological name for the truth that our salvation is given to us, that is, it is imputed to us or credited to us by God. God declares us to be not guilty, and he declares us to be righteous in his sight, even though we are actually guilty and unrighteous. Zechariah 3 gives us a clear picture to help us understand the concept of imputation. In verse 1, a man named Joshua is facing the angel of the Lord, but Satan is standing next to Joshua also. Verse 1 tells us that Joshua is the high priest. This indicates that he represents the whole nation. That's what the high priest does when he goes to offer the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. Satan stood next to Joshua to accuse him, as the passage tells us. He was ready to bring up every sin he'd ever committed in order to show that he was not a holy man, but one who deserved God's punishment. In verse 2, however, the Lord rebuked Satan and then said this, Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire? That's again verse 2 from the NIV. That statement indicates that Joshua has been saved. He's been pulled from the fire. He was in it, about to be consumed for his sins, but the Lord snatched him from that judgment. However, he was still burning because the Lord said, is not this man a burning stick? So he had been rescued for the moment, but he was still deserving of punishment. Verse three changes the imagery. and notes that Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes. This was another way of conveying his guilt. In verse 4, the angel of the Lord decreed that his filthy clothes be exchanged for fine garments that the Lord would put on him. The meaning of this exchange is also given to us in that verse where it says, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you. In other words, the fine garments represented the righteousness of God that God imputed to him. And that's all symbolized by his rescue from the fire and the exchange of his robes. After completing the clothing change for Joshua in verse 5, and then charging him to live obediently to the Lord in verses 6 and 7, The Lord explained the meaning of this vision. First, He told Israel that this was about things in the future. Verse 8 says, who are men symbolic of things to come. In the future then, the Lord promised, I am going to bring my servant the branch, and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day. That's verses 8 and 9 in the NIV. And this is what God has done for us in Christ. He rescued us from certain destruction and exchanged our guilt for his righteousness. And this is prophesied in the Old Testament because this is what God always intended. Israel never kept God's laws because sinners are incapable of keeping the law of God without God's gracious work in our lives. And so God promised that he would come and make this exchange and he would change us. Now, if you've come to know Jesus, who's called the Branch here in this passage, if you've come to know him by faith, then no matter what you've done in your life or how guilty you feel, God silences the accusations of Satan against you. and you stand before him perfect because he has imputed to you the righteousness of Christ. The perfection that God sees in you came by imputation when God credited to filthy sinners like you and me the perfect righteousness of Christ. And so this should give you confidence as you live the Christian life, even when you fail to follow the Lord. And it should give you confidence when you go to the Lord in prayer. When God sees you, He sees you clothed with the perfect righteousness of Christ. Now God has a lot of changes to make in all of us, and He's making those changes by the power of the Spirit. But God sees us and God treats us with the perfect, imputed righteousness of Christ. And so this should give us assurance of our salvation and give us confidence to live and to call on the name of the Lord. If you found this devotional helpful, go to my website, dailypbj.com, slash subscribe, and enter your email address to receive a free email subscription. This will help you read God's word every day, and my devotional will help you apply God's word to your life every day. Please consider supporting me financially if you have the means to do so, so I can keep making content like this for your own spiritual growth, and of course for others. Go to dailypbj.com slash support for more information. Please share this with someone else who might be helped to grow in their faith by it. And I'll see you next time. May God bless you. Hope you have a great day today.