St. George Island, Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Photo: USFWS by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters
Good morning, beloved of God,
Yesterday was one of those crazy days where I bit off a little more than I could chew and I finally had to admit I was done. 🙂 I am trying to get meals in my freezer with meats that I get on sale ( part of a plan..) and just to give myself a break as we go through these next busy weeks. I’m excited by what we did carry out with cooking four whole chickens and a thing of chicken thighs…but I had the Holy Spirit by the middle of it, nudging me…go spend time with My kids. So, I cleaned up and let it go. Joshua came home and we headed for the lake for a late afternoon of fishing, swimming and of course, reading. I try to read but really, I just go to gaze out over the lake. I need lake gazing time. Refreshes me.
Home for dinner of..you guessed it..CHICKEN! and a bonfire…and the kids slept in the tent again..cracks me up. We are living the dream. LOL. My neighbor came up to me at the grocery store and said, I love your house. I have to tell you. It is lived in, Cara. You can tell you live there. When your leave your house, you won’t look back with regrets and say wow, I wish I cleaned more. I love coming to your house.
I guess I’m telling you all that because this comes after years of pain and suffering and darkness in this house where I wasn’t sure if we were ever going to have light dawning again. Hear that. If you are traveling down this road, know the Lord is good and great and can be trusted. And we have walked our house praying that it would be a beacon of light to our neighbors, how wonderful that this is what they see!
Let’s get back into our study of the Sermon..and look at the first question posed to me in my Precepts study of Sermon of the Mount and how it is answered in Scripture.
Righteousness (dikaiosynē)...in a broad sense: state of him who is as he ought to be, righteousness, the condition acceptable to God
How could we ever attain such a righteousness when we are nothing but sinners? (Sermon on the Mount, @2007 Precept Ministries Int’l, p.16) Let’s look:
Romans 3: 10 As it is written, None is righteous, just and truthful and upright and conscientious, no, not one. 23 Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory which God bestows and receives.
These verses here are an important reminder to me that in ourselves there is nothing good. :0) We’ve got nothing without Him. We all have sinned and we are short. This is where His glory and honor comes flowing in!
1Timothy 1:15 The saying is sure and true and worthy of full and universal acceptance, that Christ Jesus (the Messiah) came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am foremost.
Paul must have shocked his readers. Love that. He did that all the time, I bet. Aren’t we all the worst? Yet, His Son came into the world to save me and you!
2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become [endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness].
Read it again. Okay, now, read it again. Now, pause and lift up your hands…
You are an example of the righteousness of God! He made Christ to be sin who knew no sin..so that in and through Him we might become the righteousness of God. What we ought to be! In a right relationship with Him by His goodness!! Oh dwell on that beloved!! Amazing grace how sweet is that sound! Thank You Lord!
Romans 4:5 But to one who, not working [by the Law], trusts (believes fully) in Him Who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness (the standing acceptable to God).
6 Thus David congratulates the man and pronounces a blessing on him to whom God credits righteousness apart from the works he does:
7 Blessed and happy and to be envied are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered up and completely buried.
8 Blessed and happy and to be envied is the person of whose sin the Lord will take no account nor reckon it against him.
Let’s pull out some facts here: not working by the Law, apart from the works he does…so let’s get that on the table. Now to one who TRUSTs (believes FULLY) in Him Who justifies (Declared or made righteous in the sight of God.) the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness.
Interesting, David congrats the man? Hmm…pronounces blessing on him whom God credits righteousness APART…
Check out this: sins forgiven and not only that, covered up and not only that, COMPLETELY BURIED!! Love that@!!!!
Then, how about that the Lord will take no account or reckon it against him. Adore that…just sayin’
Romans 7: 14 We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am a creature of the flesh [carnal, unspiritual], having been sold into slavery under [the control of] sin.
15 For I do not understand my own actions [I am baffled, bewildered]. I do not practice oraccomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loathe [which my moral instinct condemns].
16 Now if I do [habitually] what is contrary to my desire, [that means that] I acknowledgeand agree that the Law is good (morally excellent) and that I take sides with it.
17 However, it is no longer I who do the deed, but the sin [principle] which is at home in me and has possession of me.
18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot perform it. [I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out.]
24 O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death?
25 O thank God! [He will!] through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) our Lord! So then indeed I, of myself with the mind and heart, serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
8:
Therefore, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has freed me from the law of sin and of death.
3 For God has done what the Law could not do, [its power] being weakened by the flesh [the entire nature of man without the Holy Spirit]. Sending His own Son in the guise of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, [God] condemned sin in the flesh [subdued, overcame,deprived it of its power over all who accept that sacrifice],
4 So that the righteous and just requirement of the Law might be fully met in us who liveand move not in the ways of the flesh but in the ways of the Spirit [our lives governed not by the standards and according to the dictates of the flesh, but controlled by the Holy Spirit].
Okay, so that was a kind of lot..there, but if we are going to talk about being free from the law of sin and death and good mercies! You have to have Romans 7 and 8. I spent the entire last summer on that and probably should have spent this past year as well. Changed my whole life…
There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! You remember that today. Memorize that. Write it on a notecard. Better yet write it on your forehead. 😉 Ok, just kidding about that.
Pray on, beloved. Pray on.
Related articles
- Seeking After Righteousness – It Only Works For You (jnagyjr.wordpress.com)
- Jesus Christ, Our Righteousness (sovereigngraceanniston.com)
- Living Faith (myheartsmission.com)
- Not My Righteousness, But His In Me (christcenteredteaching.wordpress.com)
- R. C. Sproul on spiritual fruit (wordsofgrace.wordpress.com)
- Sermon on the Mount: Part 1 (joequatronejr.wordpress.com)
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