RIGHTEOUSNESS III

In my previous post: RIGHTEOUSNESS II, we saw that since man couldn’t come before God without feeling guilty and inferior, he lost four other things (peace, boldness, immortality and joy). We looked at man establishing his righteousness due to his ignorance of God’s righteousness. We concluded by examining the two kinds of righteousness: righteousness by law and righteousness by faith. Kindly go back and read for better understanding.

In this post, we shall be focusing on how we become the righteousness of God through faith and how we build on that foundation to live a holy life.

HOW HE MADE US RIGHTEOUS

Any effort by a man in his strength to be pleasing to God can never meet God’s standard. All those futile efforts put in by man is so repulsive in God’s nostrils and so He detests it. The nicest of all human beings is an abomination to God. The ultimate objective of god’s plan for man was to restore him to his right standing with him. When he lost his righteousness, everything else went along with it. When a man is restored to righteousness, every other thing comes along with it. Psalms 11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

God had to restore man to righteousness before any other thing. But how was he going to do that?

JESUS’ SUBSTITUTIONAL SACRIFICE

2Corinthians 5:21 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.

He made him. God the Father made Jesus to BECOME SIN FOR US and yet he knew no sin. Why? So the WE might BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS of God in Christ.

Isaiah 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

None of the things Jesus went through by way of suffering and shame was on his account. All those were processes of making us take upon ourselves his right standing with the Father God as he took our place.

1Peter 3:18 ¶ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit

Numerous bible scriptures confirm this

Romans 5:19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

1Peter 2:22, 24 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

1John 3:5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.

God played His role by providing for us the most perfect sacrifice, His only begotten son.

ONLY BELIEVE

Our only role in becoming God’s righteousness in Christ is to believe in the finished work of the cross.

Romans 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

We believe with the heart unto righteousness. What are we to believe with our hearts? ‘…And shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead’ Ro 10:9 this means accepting wholeheartedly that the finished work of Jesus is enough to make you righteous before the FATHER God.

NEW CREATION

2Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

When you believe in the finished work of Christ on the cross and are made the righteousness of God in Christ, the Word declares that you become a new creature. The old things including your old state of unrighteousness become a thing of the past and everything become new.

The Amplified Bible puts it better:

2Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any person is (ingrafted) in Christ (the Messiah), he is a new creation (a new creature altogether): old (previous moral and spiritual condition) has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!

Will you become more new in Christ as the days go by? Will you become more righteous today than you were yesterday? No! It is either you are righteous or you are not righteous. It is absolute.

PURSUING HOLINESS

Righteousness is justification and holiness is sanctification. You must first of all be justified by God before you sanctify yourself. If a court declares a person guilty, there is no amount of work the person does to justify him, except the same court comes back to acquit and discharge him. After the court discharges a man, it is now up to him to go and live a life free of crime.

After God justifies you, it’s now left to you to live a sanctified life.

Romans 12:9 …Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

2Corinthians 6:14-18, 7:1 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

DOES A RIGHTEOUS PERSON SIN?

1John 2:1 ¶ My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

God does not want the righteous person to sin but he has put together a remedy for it. It is similar to any ship on the seas. The engineer does not intend for troubles on the ocean but he has provided life jackets in the ship. Why? Your guess is good as mine.

The righteous man does not enjoy falling into sin because he loses his joy anytime he sins. What should you do when you sin?

1John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

*CONFESS YOUR SINS TO GOD

When a criminal is even caught red-handed in a crime, he is still given a fair hearing in court and permitted to plead guilty or not guilty himself. Similarly, God knows it when you sin but you must still confess before him.

THE MENTAL BATTLE BEFORE THE CONFESSION IS MADE:

• It is not a sin, after all, everybody does it. Your mind may even come up with names of more spiritual people who did worse things.
• Okay, even if it is a sin, somebody caused it, it’s not your fault.
• But even if I ask for forgiveness, will I be forgiven? Don’t you think God is tired of your numerous sins and confessions?

Never attempt to live the next minute of your life with unconfessed sin. It is dangerous and very risky. Stop the argument in your mind and go before God now and confess any known sin and He will take care of the unknown ones.

*RECEIVE HIS FORGIVENESS AND CLEANSING

After you confess your sins to God, Satan will laugh at you in your mind. You think by simply confessing, God has forgiven you? Look at the seriousness of your sin and you think by just a simple confession God will let you off the hook? Dear reader, Satan is very bad and crafty, don’t follow him.

God has committed Himself to forgive and you and cleansing you IF ONLY YOU WILL CONFESS IT. He adds that He is FAITHFUL and JUST.

The Amplified Bible puts it this way

1 John 1:9 If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just [true to His own nature and promises], and will forgive our sins and cleanse us continually from all unrighteousness [our wrongdoing, everything not in conformity with His will and purpose].

This provision and many others will be made available and accessible to children of God. Will like to give your life to God today by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and saviour? Then pray this prayer after me:

Father, I come to you today just as I am, I have found my greatest challenge today i.e. I have no right standing with you because of the condemnation that passed unto all human beings. Save me as I open my heart and accept Jesus today as my Lord and Saviour. Thank you for saving me and giving a right standing in your presence today. Amen.

As simple as it may seem to you, you are saved or born again by this prayer of faith. You have been restored to the right place before God. Get a bible if you don’t have one yet and start reading it for yourself. May the Holy Spirit also be your guide.

In living this life of holiness, God reveals to us that Satan deals with us as the Accuser of the brethren. We have therefore been provided us with the whole armour of God. In my last and final post in this series, I shall be dealing with the breastplate of righteousness. Until then, be strong in your new-found position.

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RIGHTEOUSNESS II

 

RIGHTEOUSNESS II

In my previous post: RIGHTEOUSNESS I, we saw that righteousness means to have a right standing with God, in order words to stand before the Father with no sense of guilt or inferiority. We also saw how sin consciousness resulting in guilt feeling has replaced our righteousness consciousness. Kindly go back and read for better understanding.

Man was driven out of God’s presence after he lost his right standing with God. There have been endless attempts by humankind to deal with the feeling of inadequacy by regaining what he once lost: his right standing with God. Man, always tries to cover up his shortfalls or doing penance (the act of inflicting punishment upon one’s self to express outward repentance for wrongdoing).

This attempt has not only been futile but has also created the most dangerous situation ever known among human beings: RELIGION. Religion is man’s endless search for connecting back to God. All founders of religion claim they were in search of one thing or the other: light, the way, truth. Among all these unique human beings, only Jesus could say, “I am whatever you are looking for … the light, the way, the truth, the life and many more”. In addition, Jesus came to search for and save all human beings and restore what we lost in the Garden of Eden. This is why I think Christianity is not a religion.

WHAT WE LOST TOGETHER WITH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS

PEACE

The harmonious relationship within the spirit and soul of man left him. And this created all forms of anxiety, fear and other complexes. With this internal condition of lack of peace with himself, he also lost harmony with his environment. This accounts for why those who are not at peace with themselves cannot be peaceful with those around them.

BOLDNESS

Man could boldly approach God before he died spiritually.

Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Boldness is required in approaching God.

Genesis 3:10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid

Proverbs 28:1 ¶ The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion. When you habour a feeling of guilty, it erodes your level of confidence.

IMMORTALITY

When man was created, he possessed immortality until sin can and lost his place with God.

Genesis 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Man’s disobedience brought in spiritual death which also activated ageing and eventually physical death.

JOY

Romans 14:17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Righteousness always goes hand in hand with peace and joy. Once he lost his righteousness, peace and joy were also lost alongside.

SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

Self-righteousness is worse than unrighteousness. Self-righteous people are the most dangerous set of sinners.

Matthew 23:27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

Isaiah 64:6 ¶ But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

Romans 10:3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

The Nun Prioress's Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, I find one very interesting character: Madam Eglantine. She is described as having impeccable table manners and soft-hearted ways. Her description suggests she is likely in religious life as a means of social advancement, given her upper-class manners, terrible French accent and singing the liturgy straight through her nose. She maintains a secular lifestyle, including keeping lap dogs that she privileges over people, a fancy rosary and badge inscribed with "Amor Vincit Omnia" ('Love Conquers All'). I have noticed from experience that people who put in so much effort to appear nice in the sight of the public have the worse of problems in their private lives.

Are you congratulating yourself for being more righteous than others since you don’t do the kind of things others do? Have you set up rules and regulations of what you will do and what you will never do? Do you feel cleaner after you do good to an orphan or a helpless person in society to cover up your sins? Those are a few indicators of self-righteousness. I used to, as a teenager, look at the sun intently, walked more gently and appear more soberly so that I could feel more righteous. I was self-righteous but I thank God today for having mercy on me. No one would have attempted to share the gospel personally with me because I had a holier than thou attitude.

2 KINDS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

To stand in the presence of the father without guilt or inferiority, to have a right standing with God, there are two ways: by law and by faith.

Righteousness by law

Romans 10:5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.

If anyone can follow all the laws of God till the end of his/her days, such a one shall be declared righteous.

James 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

But to keep the whole law, it’s really challenging.

Acts 15:9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.

10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.

Peter confessed that neither their fathers nor they themselves could keep the law in other to be made righteous. In actual fact, the motive for giving the laws was to reveal to man his total inability to follow them through.

Righteousness by faith

The second is the righteousness that comes as a result of faith-judging God as faithful and true to His word.

Romans 10:6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)

Romans 4:2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

 Romans 4:20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;

21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

 22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

 23 ¶ Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;

24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

When you are restored unto righteousness, every other thing will begin to fall into its rightful place. This is why Jesus Christ came. Will you believe today? Remember that with the heart we believe unto righteousness. Romans 10:10

Pray this prayer with me

Father, I come to you today just as I am, I have found my greatest challenge today i.e. I have no right standing with you because of the condemnation that passed unto all human beings. Save me as I open my heart and accept Jesus today as my Lord and Saviour. Thank you for saving me and giving a right standing in your presence today. Amen.

As simple as it may seem to you, you are saved or born again by this prayer of faith. You have been restored to the right place before God. Get a bible if you don’t have one yet and start reading it for yourself. May the Holy Spirit also be your guide.

In my subsequent blogging, I shall be taking you a step further in your pursuit of holiness. You may equally read my previous posts if you haven’t done so already.

 

You may want to check out on my new book

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RIGHTEOUSNESS I

 

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. 

2Corinthians 5:21

Righteousness is one theme of the gospel that has greatly been misunderstood among not just Christians but humankind in general. It is one area the devil keeps heavily guarded to prevent people from understanding, for should we come to full knowledge of this liberating truth, his influence over us will greatly wane off. Righteousness has greatly been confused for holiness. As much as righteousness and holiness are closely related, they are not the same thing.

Righteousness has to do with justification whiles holiness deals with sanctification. Righteousness is the foundation for holiness. No one can live a holy life until he has been made righteous.

Among other things Adam lost after his fall was his right standing with God. Adam was no longer in good standing with God just like Benedict Arnold lost his good standing with the American people after he committed treason.

By a single and yet a very heinous act of Adam, he lost his good standing with God. On the contrary, there was absolutely nothing you did to make you fall out of good standing with God. By reason of birth, which you didn’t even have any control over, you were in bad standing with God.

After Adam’s act of disobedience, he became fearful of God’s presence and would rather hide away from God than to pursue his presence.

And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden

And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, where art thou?

And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

Genesis 3:8-10

He lost the ability to approach God and to stand his presence without guilt or shame. ‘Righteousness is the ability to stand in the presence of the Father God without the sense of guilt or inferiority’. E. W. KENYON

It’s Important for you to note that you did not become unrighteous because of your sins. It is your nature of unrighteousness that enslaves you to wallow in sins. Before you ever committed your first sin you were already a sinner.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned 

Romans 5:12

And yet the strongest battle any man had had to fight was the battle with sin consciousness, the feeling of guilt. It is the greatest weapon Satan has used so well in causing spiritual failures.

Guilt feeling kills initiatives. In my early days as a child of God, I have distanced myself from fellowshipping with the saints any time I become conscious of a sin I had committed and the weight of guilt that comes along with that memory. I have known several people in this same condition who will refuse to get involved in any spiritual activity because of guilt feeling.

This guilt feeling resulting from sin consciousness can and does neutralize all forms of effectiveness of a human being. Guilt feeling does to man what kryptonite does to Superman. (Green kryptonite weakens Superman and other Kryptonians. It can and will kill them with long-term exposure. Kryptonians under kryptonite's effects experience severe muscular weakness, usually to the point of collapse, and excruciating pain, with both conditions progressively intensifying. They often develop a fever and eventually will lose consciousness before death. https://en.wikipedia.org)

Anyone who ever backslided was first of all a victim of guilt feeling. In this RIGHTEOUSNESS blogging series, I intend to, by the Word of God, deal a heavy blow to this old enemy of human kind. As you read this and the subsequent posts, may light be granted you and be liberated forever, because you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32

If you have not yet committed your life personally to Jesus Christ, I encourage you to do so now because He will set you free completely from all desires of the enemy. You see, all human kind, irrespective of our religious inclination, have a link with Adam. Similarly, all of us must come to Jesus (Adam II) for salvation.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 

1Corinthians 15:22 

 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 

1Corinthians 15:45 

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. 

Acts 4:12 

Jesus Christ was not a Christian when he walked on this earth, neither was it his intention to found Christian religion. His mission on earth was simple: to restore what Adam lost- man right standing with God among other things. Will you commit your life to him today?

Pray this prayer with me

Father, I come to you today just as I am, I have found my greatest challenge today i.e. I have no right standing with you because of the condemnation that passed unto all human beings. Save me as I open my heart and accept Jesus today as my Lord and Saviour. Thank you for saving me and giving a right standing in your presence today. Amen.

As simple as it may seem to you, you are saved or born again by this prayer of faith. You have been restored to your right place before God. Get a bible if you don’t have one yet and start reading it for yourself. May the Holy Spirit also be your guide.

In my subsequent blogging, I shall be taking you step by step into your completeness in God’s sight. You may equally read my previous posts if you haven’t done so already.

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