In the past, as often as I confessed my sins and prayed for forgiveness, the prayer requests that followed after that, I just felt that they are pure and are heard and will definitely be answered. Especially when these requests are unselfish and for the general good. It was such simple faith.
Now, as I am older and understand more about righteousness ... there is a great difference between my own righteousness and His righteousness.
In the verse, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Notice that it is His righteousness that we need to seek and not ours per se.
So what on earth is His righteousness?
As we all know ... the prayer of the righteous man accomplishes much. Also the prayer of a righteous woman too ... of course ....
I have been having this knot in my mind, this mental block for quite a while
to reconcile or understand the difference between the two kinds of righteousnesses.
My own righteousness and His righteousness.
Mind you, our own righteousness is like filthy rags, in the original Hebrew language the word filthy rag literally means a woman's soiled sanitary napkin.
So we really cannot depend on our own righteousness when we approach the throne room of our Abba Father, our Daddy God.
So it is not by our own works nor our own merits that we come to Him.
It is purely and entirely by His grace ... and banging upon His righteousness, not ours.
When I recite "I am the righteouness of God in Christ" often, I still don't get what I was saying for a couple of years already. You may say I am slow. But seriously, I am trying to figure out what is this righteousness of God all about?
Esp when you read the verse in Isaiah 54 verse 17
No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.
not our own righteousness but of His ...
Somehow, I still don't get it ... until recently yesterday or today ...
deep inside of me ... I seem to gather these 3 words ... righteous in Christ ...
instead of the longer version "I am the righteousness of God in Christ" ... the shorter form is "I am righteous in Christ"
Now this is much easier to grasp.
Not my own good works nor my own failures ... but I am in Christ!
In Christ I am righteous, perfectly righteous before Abba.
Now what did I say I wanted from Abba?
I receive glory, I receive favour, I receive love, I receive joy, I receive success, I receive every blessing found in the completed work of Christ on the cross died only as if only for me alone.
all these things ... shall be added unto you ... if you seek first His kingdom (that is within you, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit), and His righteousness.
So there is no more set backs or unanswered prayers that you know He would not hear, nor would he answer. No more ... no more feeling that our words bounce off the ceiling and never reach our Abba's ears.
Since we are IN CHRIST and CHRIST is His most beloved Son, and we are in Christ,
we are also His most beloved.
Ask anything in Jesus' name and He will do it. (the word "ask" here denotes demand or ask in a firm way)
Cheers fellow righteous in Christ!
Now you can be sure Abba surely answers our prayers ...
yes, every prayer ...
that good huh? yeah ... that good ...
why don't you try it?
O, I almost forgotten, my Pastor preached a very powerful truth on Sunday,
remember the scriptures on the mount of transfiguration? when Jesus and his disciples came down from the mount, many people ran towards them.
A man approached Jesus to cast out a demon in his only son.
And Jesus did. And the crowd was amazed at the wonderful work of God.
My Pastor said, why is it that the crowd was not amazed at the work of the devil?
We are God's children, God's miracles should be our daily life encounters. We should only be amazed if we encounter the works of the devil in our lives. Because the devil has no right to impose such on us as we have all been redeemed from the curse of the law (see Galatians 3) ... we should not accept such symtons of the curse at all ... be amazed beloved if there are sicknesses, debts, etc ... hovering around us ... for these certainly do not belong in the kingdom of God.
Hope you enjoy the canded sharing.
