Okay, after writing the post on Faith, I believe I need to go back and touch on something that I mentioned.
Here is what I want to key in on, the word righteous. If you are in Christ Jesus, You Are Righteous! I believe that righteous means that you are in right standing with God.
You see when you confess Jesus as your savior and believe that God raised him from the dead, you become a new creature! Old things are gone! 2 Corinthians 5:17.
2 Corinthians 5:19 (God's Word Translation) says God used Christ to restore his relationship with humanity. He didn't hold peoples faults against them! Isn't that awesome. v. 21 says that God had Christ, who was sinless, take on our sins for us! God is so good!
So many times when we mess up, do we make the mistake of focusing on what we did, instead of who we are. In fact, if we were focusing on who we are in Christ Jesus, I don't believe we would mess up in the first place... I like what the message bible says from Ephesians chapter 2: "It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah."
Did you get that? We were buried with Jesus in his death, and then when he received life, we did also! And now we, me and you, are seated with Christ in heavenly places! I guarantee that if you grasp the reality of what the bible tells us here, that we are already seated with Christ, you won't even flinch when sin comes knocking at your door!
So be of good courage, and the Lord will strengthen your heart! (Psalm 31:24) If you have Jesus living in your heart then you have already been made the righteousness of God and you are seated with Christ in heaven!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What's a Christian do if they know what they are about to do is sin and do it any way, is there any hope for them? How can I possibly be righteous if I openly committed sin?
ReplyDeleteIf you have committed sin, then be encouraged, there is hope! 1 John 1:9 says that if we confess our sin, then he is faithful to forgive us and to clense us from all unrighteousness. That good news, so just because God knows what you have done, I encourage you to go ahead and acknowledge to him verbally that you know what you did was wrong.
ReplyDeleteIf you find yourself tempted to committ the sin again, immediately change what you are thinking about. This may seem difficult at first, but with practice you can overcome this challenge in your life. The best and quickest way to change what you are thinking about is to speak aloud, preferably speak something that God has already said about you. Here is an example,"I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and I have been seated with Christ in Heaven!" This is the new creature that you have become if you have made Jesus lord of your life. This is how God sees you, so you might as well agree with him.
I encourage you to take a look at 2 corinthians 5 and Ephesians 2. That is where I quoted from above. It is also very important that you speak aloud!
For it is by grace through faith that you are saved ( made righteous) and not of works, lest any man should boast of his own doing> Ephesians 2:8
I thank you for your question and hope I have been of help. one more thing that I do is keep a scripture in my back pocket, this helps me to keep God's word close by, if tempted, then I can always reach back there and speak God's word to keep my mind occupied... I will continue to post blog's that will be helpful concerning these subjects.