The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe
"The Root and Fruit of Righteousness"
"Thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation" (Genesis 7:1).
How others view us matters, particularly as believers who exist to serve as faithful reflections of God's character, nature, and way. We are lamps of Christ's light. "I am the light of the world… ye are the light of the world" (John 8:12; Matthew 5:14).
How God views us, however, matters far more. Like Noah, does He see us as righteous in our generation? If so, one factor serves as the basis for His beholding us in grace…
"Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us… righteousness" (I Corinthians 1:30).
Have we trusted the Lord Jesus? If so, our Heavenly Father sees us as enrobed with His Son's righteousness as a freely given gift, provided through His grace received by faith. We are right in God's sight because we are in right relationship to the One for whom and by whom we exist. Noah "found grace" in his day by trusting in the light God shined upon him in great darkness (Genesis 6:8). We do not know the details of Noah's finding the Lord's favor, based on the Lord's working in his heart. We simply know that he believed, as has every human heart made righteous in God's sight from the beginning until now. "The just shall live by faith" declares both Old Testament and New of those justified and enlivened (made righteous) by receiving the freest gift ever given, purchased by the highest cost ever remitted (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17).
God so views the believer as enrobed with Christ's righteousness that He "will not impute sin" to us (Romans 4:8). He sees us as "in Christ" and thus righteous in His sight. Of course, righteousness involves more than "the root of the righteous" (Proverbs 12:12). God also purposes that we become "filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God" (Philippians 1:11). Our devotion, also fulfilled by grace through faith, must be that our Heavenly Father will see us as not only righteous in relationship and standing in Christ, but also righteous in fruit bearing through Christ. Our branches must hang heavy with the produce of the Lord Jesus' character, nature, and way. As was said of Judah of old, born again believers must "take root downward, and bear fruit upward" (II Kings 19:30).
"Thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation." Our Father declares this to all in whom Christ in His righteousness dwells. Grace received by faith assures us of so freely given a gift. May it also be said of us that He sees a bountiful harvest of righteous fruit in our countenance, demeanor, attitudes, words, and deeds. Such abundance will also be known by grace through faith as we bear fruit by the same means whereby God planted us in His Son…
"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving."(Colossians 2:6-7)
Weekly Memory Verse
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
(Psalm 139:23-24)
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