As a Christian, you are covered by the righteousness of Christ, such that when the Father looks down on you, it is with the covering of Jesus Christ’s righteousness that He sees you. The Blood of the Lamb is as strong today as it was when shed on that cross.
Stop trying to redeem yourself; you don’t have the right type of blood. “…you were not redeemed with…your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19 NKJV).
But we are also called to live righteous lives before other people and before God. Yet even with this righteousness, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit within us that we will live righteously if only we were willing to let Him do so.
It takes the God who created you to change you. “I will put my Spirit inside you and change you so that you will obey my laws. You will carefully obey my commands.” (Ezekiel 36:27 ERV).
Jesus covers you with His righteousness, and the Holy Spirit fills you with His righteousness. To the degree you allow God to reign in your life, your life will be changed more and more. You can live a righteous life if you will let God help you.
Your life will change to the degree you let God help you. “Hide your face from my sins, and wipe out all that I have done wrong. Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a faithful spirit within me. Do not force me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:9-11 GW).
The more righteous you are, the more useful you will be in God’s kingdom. You are saved by grace, but you will be used to greater degrees in your righteousness. God can use anybody, but there is an effectual power that can only flow through His righteous ones.
If you have the favor of God, it matters not what man would try to do to you. “You bless righteous people, O Yahweh. Like a large shield, you surround them with your favor” (Psalm 5:12 NOG).
Too many Christians don’t have the proper reverence and understanding of how important it is to live a righteous life. They are often more interested in appearing righteous than they are in being righteous in the way they live their lives. It’s what God sees that really matters.
Be as intent towards righteousness as you used to be towards sin. “He gave himself for us; he died to free us from all evil. He died to make us pure people who belong only to him—people who are always wanting to do good things” (Titus 2:14 ICB).
Nobody can read through Scripture with the Holy Spirit as their Teacher and not immediately be convicted and recognize the great need to be more righteous. How many verses must you leave out of your mind so that you can remain comfortable in your unrighteousness?
You’re never wrong when you choose to be righteous. “Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:24 NLT).
There are many reasons we should live a righteous life. But God did not think it required any more reason than this, but for us to be holy because He is. We were made in His image, and that image is righteous in every imaginable way.
The further you go with God, the more clearly you see how much further you have to go. “Like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” (1 Peter 1:15-16 NASB).
There are some proud ones who think they are righteous by their own self-discipline. They compare their relatively righteous life to those who are grossly unrighteous and think themselves better off for it. But they’re wrong; we are to be holy as God is holy, and that measure is above us all.
If you only work on the outside, then the inside will suffer. Jesus told the religious leaders, “So you too, outwardly appear righteous to people, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:28 NASB).
If you want your prayers to be more effective, then you need to let God help you be more righteous. God will hear the prayers of the righteous, and God will respond to the prayers of the righteous, so consider how important it is that we live righteous lives.
The more righteous you are, the more powerful your prayers. “…The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16 CJB).
If you want to hear the Holy Spirit and be inspired in your life, then you should let the Holy Spirit make you more righteous. It takes righteous eyes and righteous ears to see and hear the righteous things of God. The closer to His light, the less darkness can remain.
You cannot be joined to darkness and also walk in the light. “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7 NKJV).
People may not preach righteousness in our day. Live righteous lives anyway. Others may slander you and think you are not living a righteous life. Live righteous lives anyway. It will be God who sees you as you really are, and that is all that matters in the kingdom.
Anybody can pray to God, but it is the righteous ones that He listens to. “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil” (1 Peter 3:12 NKJV). You can only pray right if you live right. To pray better, live better.
Blessings to you always,
Paul Balius
“Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God” Ezekiel 14:14
A word for today.
Great and timely share.
BT
Thank you, Brian. So sorry on late reply, the Lord has seen fit to keep me quite busy these past few weeks. Blessings to you Brother.
Excellent words, Paul. This is critically important for us to understand, and you made it clear.
We were created to hold the divine life in us like a vessel, and to hold divine righteousness. Adam refused that divine life. Christ came as the second Adam and did not refuse the divine and righteous life. He lived that divine righteousness perfectly by the Spirit of God in Him. His death on the cross is meant to allow us to live that divine and righteous life by His life in us. The Holy Spirit of Christ will live His life in us to the extent we are surrendered to it.
Yet we must remember that this is our God’s eternal and divine purpose for us. If we refuse it so we can live a “hybrid life” by which we can retain unrighteousness and claim His righteousness, we are ignoring our God’s purpose for us. This is rebellion. This is why our only hope of glory is Christ in us!
Thank you very much!
Thank you so much for your words here. I am so pleased when I meet a soul who believes as I do in God’s desire that we would seek to live righteous lives by surrendering our life to the Holy Spirit. Let’s pray the Church would take hold of this message for this is the message of light to the darkness that is all around us.
It avails me to be mindful that we live for Christ effectually, consistently conforming to the character of Christ because we are living from Christ. The ‘for’ Christ is our faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, ‘from’ Christ, as we consciously cultivate intimate, abiding love intimacy with Christ, our forever first Love and all magnificent Obsession.
Only then can we authentically live by the light of His truth, Himself the Light and the Truth, shining and shimmering on the seat of our affections and desires, expressing, manifesting and demonstrating the One Beautiful Triune God, the Holy Trinity of Living Infinity to those whose precious lives we were born and prepared to providentially intersect in space and time.
Certainly, apart from conscientious, continual communion with Christ, we can do nothing good or godly, particularly that of enduring hardness as a good soldier of the Lord Jesus, in which we are tested and trialed, troubled and tormented, for moments and months, with a specific temptation or temptations, to work in us and out through us as His graced workmanship an exceeding, eternally expanding, overwhelming worth of glory everlastingly undiminished. Alleluia to the lowly Lamb of love, the lofty Lord of liberty!
Jude 24-25 AMPC24 Now to Him Who is able to keep you without stumbling or slipping or falling, and to present [you] unblemished (blameless and faultless) before the presence of His glory in triumphant joy and exultation [with unspeakable, ecstatic delight]—
25 To the one only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory (splendor), majesty, might and dominion, and power and authority, before all time and now and forever (unto all the ages of eternity). Amen (so be it).
I love this part of the verse: “to Him Who is able to keep you without stumbling or slipping or falling.” What a wonderful truth that He has us if we would let Him. All we must do is look to Him and be willing to let Him help us in everything we do.