Everlasting Righteousness.

"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy." (Daniel 9: 24)

Before there is a future, He has held the future. He is greater than all of time, and His redemption covers everything..

Once again,  the Cross is more than one event. It is the eternal recognition that all things have been paid for, taken care of, an everlasting covenant in which God our Father has declared: "I will be a god to you (Hebrews 8: 10-12).

This issue of everlasting righteousness is crucial. I knew that I was the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 21), yet I kept tying God's presence in my life to how I felt.

I never saw Him as alive and moving in my life. I kept basing His presence in my life based on my performance, or my thoughts and feelings.

Boy, was I wrong. I knew about righteousness, but the abundance of grace part is now stepping into play:

"15But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. 16And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. 17For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5: 15-17)

Receiving, we keep on receiving the abundance of grace as well as the gift of righteousness, and thus we reign in life. The part about Jesus as my life, too - that part no one had yet explained to me. I still thought that I was on my own in this life, to create everything on my own.

Everyone who believes on Jesus is not just the righteousness of God in Christ, but this righteousness is eternal, regardless of status, feelings, or performance.

It's a gift which we keep on receiving, not something which we must strive to keep, but rather rest in.