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Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away: behold, all things are become new...........

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who  knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

                                                                    - II Corinthians 5: 17-21


                       righteousness

 

What is righteousness?
 

Righteousness is the life and nature of God. It is a free gift from God through His grace, provided to us by Jesus at Calvary. 
 

Righteousness means, “in right standing". It is the ability to stand in the presence of God without a sense of inferiority, guilt or shame.


When we believe and accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, God sends forth the spirit of His Son into our heart and we are born again (2 Cor 5:17). We enter into the Kingdom of God as God's very own child and a joint heir with Jesus Christ. We receive abundance of Grace and the gift of righteousness to enable us to reign in life as a king (Rom 5:17, 19).


We just need to renew our mind (Rom12:2). When we discover who we are and what we have in Jesus it puts us in a place where we can fellowship with God. It opens the door to faith. Our existence, our health, our financial life, our social life will take on new meaning. The storms of life will be stopped as we exert pressure on them with the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. We reign as kings under our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ of Nazareth.


We cannot work for righteousness. We do not become righteous by our actions - being good and acting right, we were created righteous when we were born again, when we placed our faith in Jesus Christ and His redemptive work at Calvary. God gave us a new nature - the nature of God, a righteous nature (Eph 4:24). Our spirit is created in righteousness and true holiness.
 

People try to not sin, trusting in their self righteousness, their own good actions to get righteous with God. They confuse Holiness with Righteousness. Holiness is our conduct while righteousness is what we are - the nature of God. Once we start trusting in our holiness it puts us under this burden and pressure to perform and regardless of how much we do, we always could have performed better. But when we trust in God and His grace, placing our faith in Christ's performance not our own, we experience His strength joy and peace. God looks at our heart our spirit man, not our external actions of righteousness. He looks at where we place our faith, in our actions or in the Saviour? There is a purpose for godly actions, but it is not so we can put our faith in them for a relationship with God. Holiness helps us in our relationship with people and it shuts the door on the devil and keeps him out of our life, as he comes to steal, kill and destroy. (John 10:10). When we understand and receive the Gospel holiness becomes the fruit of salvation and not the root.


Awake to righteousness and sin not. When we become aware that we have been made the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ and that we have been placed in right standing with God through the sacrifice of Jesus, it will stop the sin in our life. The Grace of God is an empowerment to live a godly life. It breaks the dominion of sin (Titus 2:12).


Prov 4:20 instructs us to attend to the Word of God. The power of the word of God delivers us from the flesh. Only by feeding on the Word will we grow and be able to overcome the things of the flesh and function in line with God. (Rom 8:5)  "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh".


(2 Tim 3:1-6) Sin in our life condemns us and stops us from maintaining fellowship with God. As long as we are guilty (if guilt and shame is in our mind) Satan will use it to condemn us and make us feel unrighteous and thereby our faith is destroyed. Condemnation and faith does not mix. We can approach God only through faith. (Heb 11:6) We make a choice to choose righteousness and walk away from the sin problem. We were a sinner; we have been forgiven and are now His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. Our past life died the death of the cross (Gal 2:20). Our old sinful spirit is dead and gone and our past sins were forgiven and forgotten by God. We need to forget it. Now we are born of God and the power and force of righteousness is at work in our life.


God is sovereign. We were not created sovereign and not one thought of ours is our own. They either come from God or from the devil


(2 Cor 10:5) We cast down the bad thoughts that exalt itself against the knowledge of God saying, I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. However if we do sin (1 John 1:9) says "if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 2:1) We don't sin, but if we do we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is the propitiation (atoning sacrifice) for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (John 3:16) God loved us and Jesus gave Himself for us while we were in sin. God is not holding our trespasses against us. He is calling us to make Jesus as our Lord, and He is accepting us on the basis of Jesus’ right standing with Him and in turn putting us in right standing with Him. The only sin keeping anyone out of the kingdom of God is the sin of rejecting Jesus and what He has provided (John 16:9)


Jesus was aware of His right standing with God. He referred to God as His Father. He had no sense of inferiority. He was the Son of God; He was walking as sons ought to walk. The Father was in Jesus and Jesus was in the Father, they are one. (John 17:20-21). We are to be one with the Father, as Jesus was one with Him. (1 Cor. 6:17) “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit”. The Holy Spirit, the life force of God, lives in the heart of the believer. We get our life from Him. “He is the vine and we are the branches" (John 15:5). (John 17:23) God loves us as much as He loves Jesus. One of the reasons Jesus came into the world was to reveal the Father to the broken world. Jesus being the manifestation of the Father was revealing the nature of the Father's heart, when He was healing the sick, casting out demons. He did what the Father told Him. Jesus’ will conformed to the will of God. They walked together and worked together in harmony. It is the kindness of God which leads people to repentance. When God is revealed as the good, long suffering, kind, loving Father that He is, people run to Him, rather than away from Him because we all have an orphan heart that longs for God's love.


The Lord created us to have partnership with Him to see our dreams fulfilled. The Lord is glorified by our prayers answered (John 15:7, 8) (John 16:23)


(Mark 11:23, 24) when we are blessed, people see and glorify God (Psalm 67:1, 2). We need to begin to see ourselves as God sees us and take advantage of His free gift of righteousness. The Bible is our “spiritual bill of righteousness”, outlining all the rights and privileges available to us. Ignorance will rob us of the abundant life that is freely available to us. Gods' power is in His Word.  He is upholding all things by the Word of His power (Heb 1:3).As a believer we have obtained an inheritance and in that inheritance we have been given all authority. We need to acknowledge it with our thoughts, our words and actions. We acknowledge the fact that we are in Christ Jesus and that we have received an inheritance and we have the right to walk in all the blessings and promises of Gods' Word. As we allow the assurance of them to enter into our heart we see them become a part of our life in every area.


The Father has invited us to come boldly (confidently, without fear) to the throne of Grace with our needs and requests. When we pray in the name of Jesus according to His will, we know He hears us and we know we have the petitions we desired of Him    (I John 5:14, 15).


(I Peter 3:12) For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers" James wrote in (James 5:16) "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much"


When we find out what the Word of God has to say about the things of life and walk in line with it and renew our minds, putting the force of righteousness to work in our lives, satan cannot usurp authority over us. The Bible says we have authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:19) When we are led by what we see or how we feel, we will fail, but when we lean on our righteousness in Jesus Christ, we will know what belongs to us and we will not be deceived by the lies of the devil. We go to the Word concerning our problems (be it sickness, poverty and receive it for ourselves and walk in it because it is the Word of our Father.

 

 

                     BD21313

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