Through the Spirit We WAIT for the Hope of Righteousness

Gal_5:5  For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

TRUTH!

We WAIT for the hope of righteousness by faith.

We don't attain righteousness of our own, we WAIT for the HOPE of righteousness by faith, and we do this through the Holy Spirit.

We do this...

Eph_4:24  And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

We put on the NEW MAN, the new man after God is created in RIGHTEOUSNESS and true HOLINESS. And this righteousness, this true holiness is only through the Holy Spirit, not something we create, not something we manufacture, not something we produce. We are made new through CHRIST, we do NOT make ourselves new.

Col 3:9  Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;

Col 3:10  And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him

Col 3:11  Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

Col 3:12  Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

Col 3:13  Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

Col 3:14  And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

Col 3:15  And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.

Col 3:16  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

Col 3:17  And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

All by the Lord Jesus!

We must believe, truly believe.

Gal_3:6  Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

Through belief we wait, we hope, and that through the Holy Spirit.

All by HIS grace and mercy! All by HIS righteousness the righteousness we wait for!

In Christ's love!

Amen.

We cannot ever earn salvation

Php_3:9  And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith

When we keep the law, when we do right we are being righteous, of this there can be no doubt. However, that righteousness is NOT the righteousness of God.  Our actions are not God's actions. Our righteous actions cannot save us. What saves us is our FAITH in our Savior.  You CANNOT have faith in our Savior and continue WILLFULLY, UNREPENTANTLY in sin- which is the breaking of the law.  You may continue on in sin, your flesh nature warring with your spirit. You may have weaknesses you are striving to overcome and gain victory over. If your heart is NOT breaking over these sins, if you are NOT struggling to overcome these sins through our Lord, then are you truly repentant of them? 

We read of Esau who sought  repentance..

Heb_12:17  For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

Was Esau pained by what he'd done? Only the results of what he'd done, he was pained by the results, not by his own causing of those results. He didn't see His own sin fully, he allowed himself to be blind to his own sins.  We desire blindness because we want to continue in our sins. We can seek repentance all we want but unless we desire TRUTH, unvarnished truth, then the repentance we are seeking is really us asking God to overlook our sins, to excuse them, NOT forgive them. 

Jesus had to spill His life's blood to PAY the penalty for our sins.  God cannot overlook our sins!  By accepting our Savior and HIS righteousness, we are placing ourselves in His hands, and HE is using HIS righteousness, His blood to cover our sins. 

We cannot be found with our own righteousness and believe that our ACTIONS whatever they may be will gain us salvation. We must have our SAVIOR'S righteousness and count HIS righteousness as OURS.

We are saved through HIM, not through ourselves!

Please Father God, please bless us, help us, keep us in YOU AND YOUR righteousness. We have NO righteousness! 

We will do right things, but that will not earn us salvation.  We will live as our Savior would have us live, but that will not earn us salvation.  We can NEVER earn salvation. We must accept Christ's righteousness, Christ's salvation!

Please, Lord, save us! We know there is nothing we can do but believe in You. We know that we would do as You taught us to do, all through YOU and the HOLY SPIRIT.  You've given us YOUR laws, you have given us YOUR WORDS and we would know them, and do them through YOU!

Bless us, Lord, bless us!

Forgive us!

Keep us forever in YOU.

Amen.

Will you LOVE our Savior's appearing?

2Ti 4:8  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

Imagine, a crown of righteousness.  A crown handed to you by the Savior Himself.  Here we read of an apostle stating that there is a CROWN of righteousness laid up for him. A crown of RIGHTEOUSNESS waiting for Him.  He won't be wearing that crown going to meet the Lord in the air, but rather that crown will be given to him on the day of the Lord's second coming. The crown of righteousness can only be given to us by Christ because it is HIS righteousness to give to those who believe in His salvation. To those who believe in His righteousness that crown will be a reality.  They won't see their Savior and hold up their own righteousness in any way, shape or form. They will be trusting in Christ's righteousness, KNOWING beyond any doubt it is through HIS righteousness, not their own they are saved.

We truly have to believe this just as Paul believed this.  He wasn't counting on his own righteousness to save Himself, but Christ's righteousness to save him. We do NOT save ourselves. 

Yes, we have to work out our own salvation and that is trusting in Christ our righteousness. We have to trust in Him, in His goodness, not our own. We must hold fast to Christ and do all we can to grow in Christ, by following HIS will. Letting Christ be our King, letting Christ be our Leader, letting Christ guide us in ALL we do, this is so important.

We have to live for our Savior, our Lord, and long for His appearing!  We must long for the appearing of Christ as we would long for a cherished loved one because He is the most cherished loved one of all!

By HIS GRACE!

Amen!

Through God and our Savior'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

THROUGH the RIGHTEOUSNESS of God AND our Savior Jesus Christ, we obtain precious FAITH!

We do not obtain faith through our own righteousness! 

If we have to rely on our own righteousness we are LOST.

When we take hold of our Savior's righteousness we can claim faith through HIM, we have HIS faith, a sin conquering faith. We conquer through HIM and no other. HE is our LEADER, our KING and we must be willing to follow Him through all of life, every part of life. We can NEVER shut our King out of our lives, not ever. 

Most of us in this world today do not live life under allegiance to a king. And those who do live under kings today do not live under kings that take them into battles, like kings of old.

Our King, Jesus, leads us into battle daily.  We must swear our loyalty to Him, we must choose to serve Him, we must follow Him everywhere and anywhere He would have us go. We must do all He commands that we do. We must live as He demands, we must do all this and know that as He lead us from heaven through the Holy Spirit here on earth that one day He will return to call us to meet Him in the air and return to heaven with Him.

He is our KING, and we are His subjects, subjects He loves as His children, subjects He DIED to save.

Please, Lord, please let us realize You are our King, that it is YOUR righteousness that gives us the faith we need.  Help us to be YOURS, wholly YOURS as we fight the spiritual battle here and now. A spiritual battle that engages us daily.  By YOUR GRACE and LOVE, always!

How much of our lives are spent living for this world?

Do you have your own righteousness? Seriously. Do you have your own righteousness? What do I mean by righteousness? I mean this-

Webster's 1828 Dictionary has this to say-

'Righteousness

RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. ri'chusness.

1. Purity of heart and rectitude of life; conformity of heart and life to the divine law. Righteousness, as used in Scripture and theology, in which it is chiefly used, is nearly equivalent to holiness, comprehending holy principles and affections of heart, and conformity of life to the divine law. It includes all we call justice, honesty and virtue, with holy affections; in short, it is true religion.

2. Applied to God, the perfection or holiness of his nature; exact rectitude; faithfulness.

3. The active and passive obedience of Christ, by which the law of God is fulfilled. Dan 9.

4. Justice; equity between man and man. Luke 1.

5. The cause of our justification.'

Do you have your OWN holiness? Your own perfection? 

There is something that mankind calls good, and another thing mankind calls bad,  they call things right and they call things wrong.  They believe if they hurt no one and live by a personal code of conduct that they are righteous, but the truth of the matter is, ANY good, ANY right things we do matter not at all if they are done out of anything but LOVE. If we do good so we can be called good, if we do right so we can be called right, it means nothing in the grand scheme of things because all that goodness, all that right doing is being done out of a selfish heart, a proud heart, a heart that wants to be able to say to itself and perhaps others that it is a good heart- and therefore the person having that good heart is a good person.  The glory for which that heart seeks can be ignored because they are a good person and if it takes a selfish heart to be a good person to others, what harm is there in that? All the harm in ...well, eternity.  I could have said all the harm in the world, but it's not this world we want to live for, is it?

How much of our lives are spent living for this world?  All of it some would say, not believing a person could live for any other sort of world.  We take great stock in being able to say this is our home and we need to take pride it in.  If Aliens from outer space were to invade us we'd quickly rise up and defend our earthly home. If people from other countries degrade our country, then pride for our home country rises up. We can whittle that down to people from our hometowns having hometown pride, because people value their roots, right?   Yet the deepest roots of people going back hundreds maybe thousands of years in a single home town, mean very little in the grand scheme of things.

Satan wants us to take pride in anything and everything of this world, of this life, but let me ask you- what did Jesus take pride in of this world?  Jesus, prideful? Never.  However, Jesus did speak longingly and at great lengths about things, what sort of things? HEAVENLY THINGS.  His entire message was a HEAVENLY message. The gospel He brought to us was a HEAVENLY gospel, the gospel of the Kingdom of God, the gospel of the grace of our Savior whose sole purpose in taking on flesh and divesting Himself of His completely spiritual essence was to give all of us a chance to experience the kingdom of heaven. 

Heaven is NOT guaranteed to anyone! Too many believe they have an automated free pass to heaven upon death, but this isn't true! If it were true, why did Jesus, why did our God, Jesus, take on flesh and die for us?

Rom 10:3  For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

We can't be ignorant of God's righteousness!  We have to constantly believe in GOD'S righteousness!  And God's righteousness tells us our pride should be in HEAVEN where GOD DWELLS, where our SAVIOR DWELLS.  By the Holy Spirit may we live in HIM now and forever-   more tomorrow by the grace of JESUS our LORD.

Amen!

We need God's righteousness, not our own

I don't want to be ignorant of God's righteousness, do you?

I'm going to study more on God's righteousness, by HIS grace and to start that study off  here are a few verses--

Rom 10:3  For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

The righteousness of God.

Or our own righteousness?

We do have a thing we call our own righteousness and this thing is deception. We deceive ourselves with our own righteousness. We call the things we do right, and use them to justify ourselves, believing we have goodness, that we have righteousness in ourselves to save ourselves.

We cannot save ourselves, we can NEVER save ourselves.

Let's read more… let's study more, please LORD help us to know You and Your righteousness. Help us to recognize the wrongness of our own righteousness. Let us be YOURS through faith, by Jesus Christ!

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

2Ti 4:8  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

Php_3:9  And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith

Gal_5:5  For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

Eph_4:24  And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Gal_3:6  Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

2Co_5:21  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him

Rom_10:10  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

We're going to study this much more in-depth, Lord willing.

We need the righteousness which is GOD's, only HIS righteousness!

Please, Lord, please.

We want the sight of God rather than trusting in God's sight.

Psa 78:40,41

'How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!  Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. '

Freed from captivity after four hundred years of oppression, freed and they turned away from their deliverer. Freed and they tempt their deliverer. Freed and they limit the Holy One- their deliverer.  How like us to find freedom from oppression only to throw ourselves back into captivity because there is a familiarity to it, there is a sense of security. We often despise change, we don't like stepping out in faith because faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things NOT SEEN. We want to SEE.  We want the sight of God rather than trusting in God's sight.  Faith is trusting in GOD'S SIGHT.  Faith is trusting God to see for us not seeing for ourselves. To walk out into the unknown, to take that step where your not sure of your footing, to move forward without familiar direction this means we HAVE to let go of our self assurance, let go of our planning, let go of our constant sight.

The people of Israel moved forward with hopes of instant gratification. They were freed and they expected that freedom to provide an instant home from their wandering. They knew they were leaving behind oppression and stepping out into freedom from the slave master's whip, but they didn't quite understand that by leaving all that behind they were stepping into a situation where they would have to have faith, where they would not be allowed to see where their next meal would come from where their next home would appear. Used to having a permanent dwelling, used to knowing where they would lay their head down at night. Used to the knowledge of where their source of drinking water would come from. Knowing how much meat they'd have.  These people where suddenly thrown into a situation that called for them to walk by faith. 

However, these people were only call to walk by faith AFTER they'd witnessed so many incredible miracles by their Deliverer that it wasn't really a blind faith. They had PROOF in those miracles that their Deliverer had the power to do all to save them. They had PROOF that if their Deliverer could set them free, He could sustain them.  They had FIRSTHAND knowledge of those miracles. They witnessed all of those miracles, each and every one.  When the plagues struck the Egyptians and spared the Israelites they KNEW it was only by a divine hand that they were keep safe.  They knew because there was NO other explanation.  That would be as if right now a plague struck all the people that didn't believe in God and spared all those who did.  It would puzzle our scientists, our health care profession, our most prestigious of medical scholars  that the ONLY difference in those who received the plague and those who didn't was their believe in God. You can just imagine how crazy they would be trying to find the common dominators for those who were spared. They'd want to make an antidote from them, they'd want to figure it out so they could save those who were dying of this plague, and yet you cannot make an antidote out of faith and inject those who choose not to believe.  The people who believed in God would have no choice but comprehend that God was sparing their lives.   It was the same for the Israelites and the Egyptians.  The Egyptians were dying right and left, the Egyptians goods were being destroyed, the Egyptians were falling ill, but the Israelites were not!  Finally the last plague was truly one of faith because all the Israelites were told to mark their doors so they would be sparred, and those who didn't do so were NOT spared even though they were Israelites.

Do you see? The Israelites were given SO much proof in their Deliverer's power to save and still when their habits of old were suddenly stripped from them, they lost faith. They had faith so long as things were going their way. If Moses had led them by God's hand directly into a new land complete with homes and such for them just to move into and begin their new lives they would not have had to cultivate any true faith in God at all. Faith that goes beyond sight, and that sight could be many, many years lacking.

It's true for us today that we must walk by faith because our Savior hasn't returned for us yet. We have to live our lives as HE has told us we must live them, in faith, in Him, living for HIM, not for ourselves and our selfish desire, our selfish needs.  How quick we are to hold fast to our cherished habits, our cherished familiarity rather than grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and live accordingly.

Psa 78:40,41

'How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!  Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. '

As they were called to walk by faith, they provoked Him, they grieved Him.  We provoke, we grieve God. We turn back and we tempt God, we LIMIT the Holy One of Israel as if HE COULD BE LIMITED and HE CANNOT BE!

Can we put any restrictions upon God's ability to do ANYTHING at all?!  No! NO!

We cannot say that ANYTHING is too hard for God, not one thing!

Gen_18:14  Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.

Jer_32:17  Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee

Jer_32:27  Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?

Mat 19:26  But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

Luk 18:27  And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.

Luk 1:37  For with God nothing shall be impossible.

Job 42:2  I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.

This is TRUTH.

We cannot dare to limit God's power in our lives to SAVE us. We have SALVATION through faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior! We may think things all around us are in no way ready for salvation, but nothing is impossible with God and when the time is right He will make all things ready, even us! 

We live in the fire of temptations, we live in a battle fierce beyond any physical battle there ever was, we have a redeemer, a deliverer and HE will keep us safe for eternal life! He will keep us SAFE in HIM eternally. We must LIVE for that eternity with Him, not for the life we have now, but for the life we will have with Him, He is our HOPE, our EVERLASTING HOPE!

Please Father God, please keep us in YOU. Give us the faith we need to believe for eternity!  Keep us forever in YOU in all things. While we live here help us to live for YOU for eternity in You, let this be our hope, YOU.

All by the grace and mercy, the love of our SAVIOR, Jesus Christ!

Amen!