The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
(a repeat from 2012)
"Righteous"
God never created human beings to be righteous in and of ourselves.
"Christ is made unto us… righteousness" (I Corinthians 1:30).
That which is righteous exists in accordance with God's intentions and purposes. It is what He made it to be. It is right. Te Bible declares no human being can independently accomplish this state of being, nor can we fulfill God's perfect standard of behavior. "Without Me, ye can do nothing" declared the Lord Jesus to His disciples (John 15:5). From the beginning, God purposed human beings to "look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith" in order to be righteous and to "bear the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ"(Hebrews 12:2; Philippians 1:11).
When Adam and Eve sinned, they embraced the devilish deception that they could "be as gods" (Genesis 3:5). In order to achieve such an exalted status, our forefathers would have had to establish and maintain righteousness by their own effort. They never had a chance. Indeed, their quest to become independently righteous resulted in unrighteousness becoming their master. Having sinned, Adam and Eve (and their subsequent offspring to whom they passed down their nature) should have discovered from the start the hopelessness of their quest for righteousness apart from the only One of whom it can be said, "Thou art righteous" (Ezra 9:15). Sadly, the delusion did what delusions do: it cast the human race into darkness, the darkness of pride and the notion we are the arbiters of our own existence. Nothing could be further from the truth. "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
We exist to be inhabited, led and enabled by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. Of believers, the Apostle Paul wrote, "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His into your hearts" (Galatians 4:6). This is righteousness for human beings, the rightness of being that leads to rightness of doing. Nothing else suffices in constituting and empowering human beings to fulfill the reason for our existence. We cannot be and do what we were created to be and do by ourselves. Nor were we intended to do so. We rather exist to be "habitations of God through the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:22). Born again believers are righteous in being because the Spirit of Christ dwells in us. We act righteously in behavior because that same Spirit walks in us, leading, motivating and enabling all genuine godliness. No other righteousness is needed, nor is any other possible…
"Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us… righteousness."
(I Corinthians 1:30)
"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 5:21)
Weekly Memory Verse
Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory, for Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake.
(Psalm 115:1)
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