Righteousness! Chapter
Twelve
One of the greatest challenges to walking in the
righteousness of God is breaking free from your sin consciousness. In the past
religion has taught us that we are just sinners saved by grace, however this is
not the truth. Paul said in 2 Cor. 5:17-21, (NIV)
"So from now on we regard no one
from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this
way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has
gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to
himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to
himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he
has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore
Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us."
Just stop and mediate on this scripture. If you have
bought into the idea that we are just sinners saved by the grace of God,
consider what Paul is saying here. He said that if anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creation, the old way of life is gone, and we now live a new life. If you
are in Christ and still just a sinner saved by grace, then there is sin in
Christ. However, that is impossible!
The life of a sinner that you once lived is dead,
gone!! You may have once been a sinner but that life that you once lived is
dead, gone!! You now have a new life! One that is free from sin and is the
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! I know that this is hard for your carnal
mind to accept because in the past we have majored in sin consciousness. This
is why Paul told the Church at Rome this in Rom. 12:2,
"Be not conformed to
this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may
prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
Your thinking that you had before you were born
again has to be forsaken and you must come and learn from God His ways and His
thoughts.
In most churches and when most Christians pray they
make the following statement in everyone of their prayers: "Father forgive
us our sins and our unforgiven sins!" They pray this despite the promise
of God as recorded in Heb. 8:10-12,
"For this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord;
I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will
be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother,
saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the
greatest. For I will
be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will
I remember no more.
Allow me to challenge you to find me a
scripture in the New Testament after Jesus went to the cross, that tells us to
ask our Father to forgive us of our sins!!!! You may want to go the model
prayer and say to me that Jesus said that we should pray that God forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors." However, this was said before He paid the price for our sins! In
that prayer Jesus also said, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done!" His Kingdom came on the Day of
Pentecost!
The point I am making to you is that we have majored
in sin consciousness and do not see ourselves as righteousness in God's eyes!
The reason for this is because we have been taught self-righteousness. We have
been taught to try to by like Jesus in everyway that we can. What Paul is
trying to get through to you is that when you were born again, you died first and
then even as Jesus was raised from the dead, you were born again with a
completely new life which is a life of righteousness in Christ Jesus.
This life in Christ Jesus does not depend on your
ability to live righteous before God because that was impossible to do before
Jesus paid the price for our sins. All of our self-righteousness fell far short
of the righteousness of God. We have been given the righteousness of God
because of our faith in what He has said to us.
For those of you who need to clearly understand the
rationality of something before you can believe it, here is what Paul said
concerning the free gift of righteousness from God. Rom. 5:17-19,
"For if by one man’s offence
death reigned by one (Adam); much
more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore
as by the offence of one (Adam) judgment came upon all men to
condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one (Jesus) the free gift
came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made
righteous."
Because we are a new creation in Christ Jesus when
we are born again, it is the most natural thing for the life of God to flow
through us. Jesus said in John 7:37-39,
"If any man thirst, let him
come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as
the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him
should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because Jesus was
not yet glorified.)
Even though we hear these things, we read them, and
quote them, the reality of these truths must penetrate our hearts before they
can begin to affect our lives. Something must change in our consciousness in
order for these truths to come to pass. It is one thing to know the truth but
an entirely different thing to live by it. Truth is much like learning to play
the piano; to become efficient at it, you must practice believing it. This is
where our faith comes to life. We can believe something all our lives but it
will do us no good until we begin to walk in it.
Do you believe that you are righteous or is fear and
guilt in your heart? I would dare say that a lot of Christians would answer
that question by saying, "Well, most of the time I believe that I am right
with God but there are times when I wonder because of some of the things I
do!" The reason for this is because you are believing that you are
righteous based on your being able to live by the principles that Jesus gave
us. When you fail to live up to one of
them, you judge yourself as guilty.
The truth is that we are righteous because He is
righteous. Righteousness has been given to us as a free gift that is
irrevocable. That means that God will not take back His free gift to us because
we fail at some point to live up to His commandments! Paul said in 1 Cor.
1:30-31,
"It is because of him
(God) that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness,
holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who
boasts boast in the Lord.”
Jesus was made the wisdom of God for us because of
His obedience to His Father and He was made our righteousness and because we
are in Him we are righteous.
Just knowing this will not cause much to happen in
our lives. It is when we become convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that we
are righteous. When this happens we will walk with confidence and anticipation
of the grace of God opening up doors for us.
It is one thing to say, "I believe in what God
has said!", and something else to have faith in what He has said is true
of us! Jesus told us in Matt. 5:48,
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which
is in heaven is perfect!"
How many of you have been taught to believe that!
You may say, "Well, I believe that but......" There are no buts
to what Jesus said! You either accept at face value what He said or you doubt
what He has said is true concerning you! This is why we must allow the Word of
God, Jesus, to change our way of thinking! Jesus told us in John 14:6,
"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by
me."
Jesus said, "I am the truth!" He never
told us to do something or that we can do something that was not the truth!
This is why we must allow our thinking or what we think about the Truth to be
change to what Jesus said was the Truth!
The great Apostle Paul was given by the inspiration
of God the Gospel to take to the Gentiles. Paul had perhaps a much deeper
understanding of the Gospel than any of the other Apostles. Even Peter said in
2 Peter 3:15-17,
"Even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto
you; As also in all his epistles, speaking
in them of these things; in
which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are
unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto
their own destruction!"
I can remember, as a child, hearing many preachers
say that the book of Romans and Hebrews were difficult to understand. This is
so true, if we depend upon our wisdom to understand things that are spiritually
written in spiritual words that can only be understood by the Spirit! Paul said
this in 1 Cor. 2:12-14,
"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which
the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receives
not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither
can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
I am spending a lot of time on the subject of
Righteousness because Paul had a lot of things to say about it. If we continue
to major in sin consciousness, we will never be able to accept the deeper
things of God and will never be able to achieve maturity as a son of God. We
will remain a child in the Kingdom of God.
I also remember when I was a child, hearing the
statement, "God said it and that settles it and I believe it!" That is all well and good, but do you act
upon what He has said? If Jesus told us to be perfect, then it is possible for
us to be perfect in God's sight. Maybe not in what we consider perfect because
we depend upon our ability to be perfect and not on the ability of Jesus to be
perfect! We are perfect because He is
perfect and our life is lived in Him!
In the same way, we are righteous because He is
righteous! We have been given the right to stand before God without
condemnation because we stand before Him in the righteousness of Jesus! We are
righteous because He said we are righteous and no matter what you carnal mind
tells you, this is true!
As a result of this righteousness, we can have a
personal relationship with our Father and come to know Him as love perfected.
Then the world will have a demonstration of the Lord in their midst and be able
to see that city that is set on a high hill!