Meditate on God's Gift of Righteousness

"For 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 5:17)

"They which receiving" is more properly translated "They which are receiving".

It's an active, continuous tense.

God's gift of righteousness is not something that we receive one in a while.

God our Daddy wants us to keep receiving it, even when we sin, fail, and fall short of God's glory:

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" (Romans 3:23)

We still fall short, but that does not mean we should run and hide in shame, the way that Adam and Eve did when they ate from the Forbidden Tree.

Instead, God invites us to look on His Son and be transformed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).

We should come to the throne of Grace in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16)

God's new covenant in our lives is enacted by this gift of righteousness, that we know that we will never be punished for our sins and iniquities!

"10For 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:

"11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

"12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8:10-12)

Remember that the word "merciful" should be rendered "propitious", in that God did not arbitrarily decide not to punish our sins.

They were punished in the body of His Son Jesus!

"Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed." (1 Peter 2:24)

He bore our sins, which signals to our conscience that we should never feel the need to punish ourselves for the wrongs which we have committed, and the sins which we will commit in the future:

"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:" (1 John 2:2)

Let's meditate on this great gift of righteousness, righteousness which rolls like a mighty, never-ending stream! (Amos 5:24)