Why Are You Righteous And Are You Righteous In Yourself Or In God?
Gal 2:16, 21
If we are saved (Christians) we are made righteous through faith in Jesus by grace as Gods Word says. -We repent and receive forgiveness through Jesus Christ. We need to give our lives and our all to Jesus. It is not an empty talk that we are made righteous, everyone can see it, you have a fruit of it and if you don´t have a fruit of it something must be wrong and it is not something wrong with God or His Word…you maybe missed something. You can read this teaching and see if you missed something. God loves you and accept you fully as you are in Christ. God thinks you are so beautiful in Him and your own deeds have nothing to do with it. You can´t impress God with your own deeds.
Are we free to continue to live in sin because of our justification by faith in Jesus?
Of course not. Read Gal 2:17. But we should not rely on our own deeds. We cannot be righteous throu anything we do or not do. We need to have the fruit of the Spirit in our lives and this is something else, it is not our own good deeds in our own ability. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit and when we obey God and His word it works. We need to choose this. When Jesus is our everything and when we know that He is wonderful and the best, we want to be with Him and listen to Him. If we spend time with Jesus He change us and we be more like Jesus.
How do we know that we don´t just do our own deeds? We want to walk in the Spirit but how? If we have two people for exemple. One of these walk in the Spirit and the other just do his own good deeds in his own ability and just try to be righteous by himself. It may happen that these two people look a bit like each other on the outside. They maybe not steal or lie, etc. But the difference between the spiritual Christian and the one who try to be righteous in his own ability is that the spiritual Christian have love, joy, peace, patience, etc.. everything that you can see in Gal 5:22. The other one usually have none of this fruits, but instead fleshly things like envy, strife, slander, and this person often complain on other bad people and look down on them. He also boast about his own good deeds . They are not free or liberated by God. It's dead, hard, cold, and there is no life in that person. They can be mentally strong and have confidence in themselves, but they look down on others and raise up themselves. They must pray and read the Bible and are not hungry for it, it's just a requirement. They often have the wrong teachings and interpret the Bible in their own ways.
The spiritually Christians love to pray and read the Bible and have a hunger for this. The spiritual Christian love God and everything that He do by His Holy Spirit. A good sign of a person who walking in the Spirit is holiness and purity and a love to other people. Those who walk in the Spirit love people but hates sin. The other one is bound and maybe have the Bible and God's word but do not want it´s power and they like to criticize people who have the Holy Spirit. It is not easy for the person who walk in his own righteousness to be in meetings where God and God's presence is. Some of these people think that it is so right and good how they think and live and it is not easy for them to get free, but others wants to be free and this teaching is a help to people who wants to be free and wants to be a Christian who don´t rely on their own ability and deeds but instead starts to rely on Gods righteousness in them and His ability and His Holy Spirit who can be their helper instead.
We do not deserve God's righteousness in ourselves or in our own deeds, everything is by grace and through faith in Jesus. We are falling out of Gods grace if we think that we can be righteous by our own deeds. Read Gal 5:4. It is also a danger for us if we think that we can sin because we have Gods grace. We must have good deeds, yes, but it is a fruit of Jesus who lives in us and because we have His righteousness. His righteousness is perfect. Some people say all time that they are made righteous by faith throu Jesus, but the only thing they show is carnality and this is so wrong.
People in the Old Testament wasn´t baptized in the Holy Spirit, but they had the fear of God and respect for the Lord. For example we have Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Esther, Jeremiah and many others. They lived for God because they loved God and respected Him, but today we has such a light-hearted Christianity and we think that we can sin because we have the grace of God and some people wants to sin sometimes and just think they can say forgive to God so easy. Many have a lack of respect to God. It is so sad to just play Christian because if we think and live like that we really say that we love and enjoy sin. Justification by faith does not give a legitimate right to sin and to continue to live in sin. If we are bound in sin and misery we need help. We need to confess the sins with its real name and other Christians maybe need to help us and pray for us so we can be set free. We also need the Holy Spirit and a big dose of the fear of God and we need to hate the sin and not love it. If you like a sin, then confess it as sin, too. Now we live in the new testament and the blood of Jesus take away our sins and not just cover our sins like the animals in the old testament only could do.
God loves you and accept you as you are in Christ. Jesus died for you and took your sins on the cross. He paid the price, but not for you to remain in sin. Sometimes Christians think that they really cannot make it without the Holy Spirit and that is true, but why does the sin attracts and tempts so much? Well it must be because of the love of sin.
We have a great privilege today because we have the Holy Spirit who gives us power and strength to resist sin. But if we think we can sin because we're saved by grace and justified by faith in Jesus and not by our own deeds, we are just playing and we can loose our salvation. Weak people can be stuck in sin and they need help. It is another thing. These people we should take care of and help. But dangerous people are those who say that they are saved and in the same time living in sin and defending the sin and wants continue in the sin.
We cannot be free from the sins in our own ability. Jesus sets us free and cleanse us with His blood.
In some charismatic Churches today it is a cheering and dancing before the Lord one moment, but other moments it is a very much of sinning and this continue month after month, year after year. This is not a true Christian living. When it is in this way people need a real repentance before God. When people be born again Jesus move in and the world and sin moving out. When you are filled with Jesus, His love and glory, and the Holy Spirit you are totally satisfied and do not need to satisfy yourself with the sin and pleasures of the sin (if you see the sin as pleasures). When you get this wonderful teaching and revelation of your righteousness by faith in Jesus you also need to realize that the fear of God and obedience are not excluded.
I am going to summarize a bit here: We are justified by faith in Jesus and it is a wonderful transformation. Then we need to get the fruit of the Holy Spirit and God's righteous fruit in our lives. We shall obey God, respect Him and understand that He knows the best. His Word are instructions for our lifes. Our hearts need to be transformed. We need to be sanctified and be more like Jesus, the fruit will come out of us, good fruit, good deeds from a transformed heart, from God's love and power and the Holy Spirit's fruit in us. We cannot have a holy life and a life with good fruits in our own ability and power. The Holy Spirit do it in and throu us and it is a work of God through our permission. We need to obey and love God. Remember also that everything can be our own works and our own deeds in our own ability, for exemple: to witness, pray for others, lead others to salvation and so on. Everything we do must be based on our love relationship with Jesus and Gods love in us to others. We love the Lord and serve Him from this love and because of our passion for Him and because we are devoted to Him. Remember that the Christian life is a delightful life with the Lord Jesus in a love relationship with Him. You can be glad and rejoice in Jesus, you can dance and be free and full of Gods peace. Be blessed from Anette.
