Christ's Righteousness

2Pe 1:1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
2Pe 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord


Precious faith-through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.


Not through our righteousness!


Is it any wonder that people give up hoping? They give up because they are placing their hope in themselves and not in God. We will ALWAYS lose hope when we begin to hope in ourselves. Hope in ourselves is a false hope, hope in our goodness, hope in our righteousness is a losing hope, a dead hope. We cannot hope in ourselves, we just can't. We have to get this drilled into our minds and keep it there. The hope is IN CHRIST, not in ourselves. We can hope until we are old and gray, or old and grayer, all we want and if that hope is placed in our own righteousness we will be unsaved. People love to pat themselves on their backs and take pride in being self-righteous, but all that self-righteousness means NOTHING. No, I'm not advocating being unrighteous and willfully committing unrighteousness. We need to stay as far from unrighteous things as we can. What I'm saying is we are only truly righteous in Christ's righteousness. Any good that we do must be a result of Christ's goodness, not our own. Is it any wonder we are to give God all the glory? That we are to freely given thanks to our God? We must be GOD centered. Our life has to revolve around GOD, not ourselves. We need to live FOR God. Our hope in life has to be in God who dwells in eternity and promises us eternity in Him.


I looked up a few verses on hope--


Psa 31:24 Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.


Psa 33:18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy


Psa 33:22 Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.


Psa 78:7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments


Psa 119:114 Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word


Psa 147:11 The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.


Jer 17:7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is


Lam 3:24 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.


Lam 3:26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.


Joe 3:16 The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.


Rom 4:18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.


Rom 8:24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?


Rom 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.


Rom 15:13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.


Gal 5:5 For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.


Col 1:5 For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;


Col 1:22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
Col 1:23 If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:


2Th 2:16 Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace


1Ti 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope


Tit 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began


Tit 3:7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life


Heb 3:6 But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.


Heb 6:18 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us


1Pe 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead


1Pe 1:13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ


1Pe 1:21 Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.


1Pe 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:


1Jn 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
1Jn 3:3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.


Our all in all is Christ.


Note this particular verse--


Tit 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began


PROMISED before the world began.


Mankind was created to be eternal.


We were meant to be eternal beings.


We were never meant to die. Death only came to us through sin.


Before the world began there was put in place - hope for eternal life. God CANNOT lie! The hope of eternal life was promised to mankind before mankind existed.


We all know what it means to make plans for things and have those plans work out smoothly, things go off without a hitch as the saying goes. And we all know what it means to make plans and have things NOT go off without a hitch. People have contingency plans for that reason.


We were promised the hope of eternal life and that hope has been realized in our Savior.


Satan would have that hope disappear. Satan would have us hold fast to false hope. Satan will do anything He can to keep each and every one of us with Him. If you think about it - to those who are considered to be the most influential, important people in the world we aren't even known. Those important people could careless whether we exist or not. Our lives mean nothing to those people and therefore we imagine that to God we mean even less, but this is the beauty of God being love. He cares about ALL of us on an eternal level. Yes, I said on an eternal level. I have to say on an eternal level because otherwise people will start spouting off about all the horrible things done to innocents and say if God cared that stuff wouldn't happen. God does care for us even now but more importantly He cares for our eternity. Satan is considered to be the most important evil influence in existence and people sometimes believe that he too is too important to bother with little ol' us. People place him on the same level as human beings and it's true that important human beings care nothing (or mostly nothing) about the average person outside their little realms. Satan CANNOT be placed on the same level as human beings, this is a HUGE mistake to put him there and believe he could care less about you, that you mean nothing to him at all. You mean A LOT to him, more than you realize.


Satan will have to pay one day for ALL the sin he's caused. For every human being that is lost to Him and is God's, He will have to take on all their sins, the sins that Christ has forgiven them for. The more people Satan has on His side the less he will be punished for. The more people He has on His side the less God will have and Satan glories in the knowledge that He can keep even one person from God.


We are in a war and there are only two sides to this war.
You are on one side or the other and BOTH generals of this war want you on their side.


Unlike our earthly wars where it's all up to chance whether you live or die, this war for eternity is up to us. We decide to either claim eternal life through our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, or we decide to claim eternal death courtesy of Satan.


My hope is in my Savior! My hope is in Christ's righteousness! My hope is in the grace and love, through the forgiveness of my Lord and King the Son of God.


Amen!