Guilt is a feeling of self condemnation.
Righteousness is a feeling one gets when everything on the inside is fine and well, can even mean soul prosperity.
The Rest of God, as we have always been taught, work hard to enter His Rest, this is the shalom shalom, peace on the inside and peace on the outside.
when we pray, after asking the Lord to forgive all our sins and cleanse us of all our unrighteousness, we have that sense of righteousness within having full faith that He heard us and has done according to what we asked based on 1John1:9 that He is faithful and just to forgive us all our sins.
however, have we sometimes or often wondered how is it that
many of our prayers take a long time to be answered
or some might not even be answered?
could it be that He did not hear us?
certainly not, He's God, He could even hear what we utter in our hearts and know what we think
in our minds ... how could He not hear us then?
I would like to bring all of us to these verses ... which Abba spoke to me this morning ...
John 16:
8And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9Of sin, because they believe not on me;
10Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
11Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
if we are reproved of sin, then it means that we are like the "they" who "believe not on me"
we often feel that the Holy Spirit's job is to search our hearts of sins, both committed or omited ... but this is certainly not so ... as a believer, the Holy Spirit does not finger point us our sins ... which were already borned on the Cross of Calvary by our Lord and Saviour for us on our behalf ... He did it once and for all eternity, so our salvation is as secured as what the Son of Man and the Son of God has done for us ... no more "but"s about it.
many times we read in the scriptures, the prayer of the righteous accomplishes much.
James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Yes, you might say, here we are taught to confess our sins, not just our sins, but even confess to one another ...
if we know James, we know he wrote to the Jewish brothers or community of his days ... not necessary to truly bona fide believers ... the fact that the sick had to call for the elders of the church to lay hands on them and to pray over them ... shows that these sick might not even be believers, as if we all know that believers ourselves can pray over ourselves and be healed! Jesus the greater One resides inside of us we just need to activate Him ... who might be resting in the boat (our body) on the stormy sea of Galilee ... and His Shalom can calm any mega storm in our lives.
the Holy Spirit's job towards believers is to convict the believers of righteousness. The pure and holy and perfect standing before God the Father. Not the righteousness of the believer himself/herself which is attained by our own good works but the righteousness that is bestowed upon us by God the Father Himself. His righteousness, "their righteousness is from Me", His righteousness that causes no weapons formed against us shall prosper nor shall any plague come near our dwelling. His righteousness that ensures that blessings are always always always upon the head of the righteous.
it is also the Holy Spirit's job to convict the prince of this world, the devil, of his judgement. He is already judged on the cross. So Christians, please don't even need to entertain this defeated foe. We have better things to focus on than that.
...
the above is birthed mainly because of the countless messages we are hearing in our church week in and week out, and the cd messages with full Bible references backup ...
also in answer to my prayer to Him recently about some matters on prayer
...
you see, I used to ask the Lord for a car, and eversince I passed my driving test,
I went for a test drive on day 1 after I passed the test, but was not able to buy that
2nd hand car because of opposition from the family, they don't want me to spend so much money getting a car.
I waited and prayed for almost 3yrs for a car
and someone came and prayed with us somewhere in the 3rd year
she prayed "Father give them a car"
somehow I felt it in my spirit that the car is already birthed!
after her prayer ...
but someone was not convinced yet ... though he is considering over it ...
and during one worship in church, I knelt down in the middle of a charismatic standing worship session, and prayed like this "Father, I don't care, I want a car, I want a car now!"
with closed eyes. And I saw in a vision, a sports car, twin door sports car!
I almost flipped, I began to sit on the carpeted floor and laughed ...
and said in my own dialect I translate it here for you "Have You made a mistake? I want a family car, a four door one, not a sports car, how can I fetch my mom-in-law and dad-in-law in this?"
needless to say, we bought our first car, a brand new Honda City ... for a whopping
SGD91K! and this baby was fully paid within 1year or so! Humanly speaking we don't see
that we can pay off such a hefty amount in one year! But it really took Him.
Back to my question, why is it that I did not get the car the first time I prayed?
why is it that I can easily believe it the first time my friend prayed for us?
and when the car arrived, I truly believed it was more in answer to her prayer than ours ...
and He told me, it is because of righteousness consciousness
"once you know and believe you are righteous in My sight
you will have no sense of guilt
and hence your prayer is effective and powerful"
we cannot have it otherwise.
Christians are told to work hard to enter His rest, read the book of Hebrews ...
what then is the rest of God?
HE told me this morning and wanted me to share here ...
the righteousness of God in Christ consciousness is the Rest of God.
when we are conscious of our righteousness as a gift from God in Christ,
we enter into His rest and we have the boldness to approach His throne room of grace
where we can ALWAYS find help in our times of need, and ANSWERS to our prayers ...
whatever we ask for ... whatever GOOD stuff we ask for ... truly Jesus Almighty!
know we are righteous, not because of who we are but whose we are.
Guilt, condemnation, the feeling that we will never rise up or amount to anything in life
will flee from our lives and can never have a foothold in our lives anymore.
we are so blessed and victorious in the Beloved Son of God Most High.
Praise Jesus.
- Jewel
