"In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee." (Isaiah 54:14)
This journey has been incredible.
I never thought that I would be facing down police officers, mobsters, left-wing thugs, Antifa, internicine fights, unemployment, over-employment, media attacks, media scares.
Yet in the midst of all of this, I have both known and believed that God is love.
I have been without a car for a while, too.
My goodness, just when I thought everything was falling apart around me, and it seemed to have gotten worse.
And yet ...
I sensed within me frequently that I needed to double down on the unshakable truth of God's gift to me, through His Son Jesus:
"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)
Through Jesus, we are now receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness!
Do I really believe that? Is it true that I am established in His righteousness?
For that reason, the trials will come into our lives. Do we rest assured in the truth that Jesus' Work at the Cross has accomplished all things, or not?
Peter would write to his fellow Jewish Christian believers during their trial:
"Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 7That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:" (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Notice that our faith is worth more to God than gold--and gold is often used throughout the Bible as a type of righteousness and divinity.
The gold which never perishes--that is our righteousness, granted to us through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus:
"Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." (Romans 4:25)
During the final days of last year, a sense of heaviness did overcome me. I faced so many challenges, and worried about what I was going to do or how I was going to get through all of it.
How did I respond to these challenges? I began to read more of God's Word and listen to more of His Word. I asked for answers, and I asked God to show me more of what I needed to know or whatever I had believed that was wrong.
What has been resonating in my spirit all comes back to the Gift of Righteousness!
I realized that I had spent so much time ruminating on what was wrong, rather than seeing Him who has been from the beginning.
Then this passage came to my mind, from one of Paul's letter to the Philippians (a letter which he was writing in jail):
"Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." (Philippians 4:11)
Let's not forget Paul's exhortation to rest our minds in good things (Philippians 4:8)
That's a choice that I had to start making in my life. It was still too easy for me to retreat into troubles and hardships, and for my mind to drift then settled into imagining the worst case scenarios. Every one of these fears and tumults must be met with God's Word, not our wonderings:
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)
My Daddy God has been cleaning a lot of wrong thinking and habits in my mind. That's what spiritual growth in Him is all about!
"1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (Romans 12:1-2)
It's good for me to reflect on how often my mind revert to worst-case scenarios. Many times in the morning, I would begin ruminating on bad outcomes. This is a faithless, bad habit and there is no excuse for it.
Oftentimes, I was struggling to effect some kid of solution, some kind of outcome, as though my standing or my well-being was wrapped up in any kind of outcome. Such thinking is simply untrue and unbiblical.
We have a promise, for God has called us to be "established in righteousness"(Isaiah 54:14)
When meditating on Romans 5:17, I recall that God invites us to keep receiving the gift of righteousness and the abundance of grace. This promise fulfilled today for us reminded me of Amos 5:24, in which the prophet moved by the Spirit declared:
"But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." (Amos 5:24)
That mighty stream is flowing over me!
Sometimes, the only way that we can know and believe is that we stay rested in the truth of our status as righteous. There is no way we can be sure if we did not endure hard trials. I have seen myself going through some unprecedented difficulties recently. Instead of wandering into fears, worries, tumults, and a lingering sense of condemnation, I stay focused on the truth:
I have been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21). This revelation was so often absent from me. When I had faced trying times before, I would immediately start asking myself what I had done wrong or right. I looked at myself. Now that I know about the New Covenant, now that I know that Daddy God is indeed a God to me, I rest in the part of the clause which enacts and enforces God's New Covenant in my life:
"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)
All of my unrighteousness has been paid for, and before God I never need worry about being condemned for my sins--past, present, and future--ever again:
"For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee." (Isaiah 54:9)
and
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)
and
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
Cleansed from all unrighteousness!
Let's be established in this promise, in this confirmation! God gave His best, and the least we can do is honor what He has done for us.
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