When Abraham believed God, the Bible says it was “credited to him as righteousness.”
For a long time, that sounded like a divine workaround. As if God looked at Abraham’s trust and said, “Well, you’re still flawed, but I’ll pretend you’re righteous.”
But that’s not what the word meant.
The original Hebrew word—chashav—doesn’t mean “transferred” or “deposited.” It means regarded. Recognized as true. God wasn’t ignoring reality. He was acknowledging it. Abraham’s trust may have been simple, raw, or late in coming—but it was real. And God saw it for what it was.
Righteousness isn’t moral perfection. It’s not a score. It’s what happens when the heart begins to turn back toward truth. When we stop resisting love. When we stop hiding from what’s real and begin to respond to it.
Abraham wasn’t righteous because he got everything right. He was righteous because he finally opened—just enough for trust to take root. And trust always begins the healing.
It’s not God ignoring reality. It’s God finally seeing a heart that stopped hiding from it.
So when you open—even a little—God doesn’t pretend something happened. Something did happen. You began to trust. He sees that it’s real. And He calls it righteous.
