THE FORCE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS (3)

Having established in the previous post that the born again man has the nature of Righteousness, the cream of this thought is the fact that the righteous nature prompts and inclines towards righteous living.

The righteous nature operates in the believer as an inward force and compulsion that propels him to live right.

It is bizarre to threaten a believer with hell or evil because you want him to live a godly life. 

The will of God is not burdensome for the believer; it is his home, he is a product of God's will. "Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome." (1 John 5:3 NLT)

The unbeliever is helplessly sold-out to sin; he lives in sin, he could wish otherwise, but he cannot but walk in sin because 'sin' lives in him as a nature "So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it."(Romans 7:17  NLT). It is not so for the believer, by divine nature he is empowered  to live right.

When a believer commits sin, we don't say he has a sinful nature; just like a small boy who is mimicking a puppy is not called a dog for barking. Paul gives us the right perspective to it : in spite of the various wrong doings in the Corinthian Church, The Apostle did not at any time called them sinners, rather, he reminded them of who they are: 

 "Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself," (1 Corinthians 6:19 NLT)

"Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NLT)

Are you a believer struggling with sin? All you need to do is to yield to the seed of God on your inside, by taking heed to what the Bible says about the new man in Christ and you will be able to live holy life effortlessly.  blessed?

The Force of Righteousness (2)

"Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living." (Romans 6:18 NLT)

The man born again does not have dual nature, he has only one nature - the nature of God (2 Pet. 1:3); every living being produces after his /its kind, and everyone born of God is in the 'class of God'. 

We make mistakes when we put the Bible aside, and form beliefs and opinions based on human experiences. Example of such mistakes is to PRESUME that believers have sinful nature because you have seen a number of believers fall into sin over again. 

For the man born again, the sinful nature has been annihilated - the born again man does not have sinful nature, its has been irreversibly removed from him. The following scriptures proves that:

"In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, but in a [spiritual] circumcision [performed by] Christ by stripping off the body of the flesh (the whole corrupt, carnal nature with its passions and lusts)." (Colossians 2:11 AMP)

"knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin."(Romans 6:6 NKJV)

"And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." (Galatians 5:24 NKJV)

What then should a sinning believer do? He should take heed to Rom.12:1-2 and Phil.4:8; he should renew his mind.

By the new birth, the man born again became a 'part-taker' of the divine nature which is the nature of righteousness: having become a partaker, he has become a 'participant' in the activities of the divine life. The only nature he has now, is the nature of righteousness, he is an active participant in the activities of the righteous life because of the nature which he has received.  As sin abides in the unbeliever as a nature, so does the nature of righteous lives in the believer. A goat can not combine the animalistic and human nature, and an unbeliever could not have both the sinful nature and the nature of God at same time, the believer could neither have the two at same time. "...since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. (Romans 6:2-4 NLT).    got it?

The Force of Righteousness (1)

Righteousness is the ability to stand before the awesome God without cringing fear or shamefacedness.

If a natural man (unbeliever) gets the opportunity to be aware of the presence of the Most holy God, he can't but be conscious of his sinfulness and his unworthiness (Isaiah 6:1-5). The person of God, just like His word,  is like a revealing light that exposes the true nature of man such that he himself sees his most immaculate righteousness as a filthy rag when brought under the spot light of the holy God.

Hence, right standing before God is not only a strange phenomenon to man but its an absolute impossibility. If man must stand before God unashamed, then it must be a gift. That's why righteousness came through the redemption of our Lord Jesus a GIFT (Rom. 5:17; 1Cor.1:30)

We have received the righteousness of Jesus; we are clothed with His righteousness, and because of that, I can stand before God in full confidence and boldness: because i am "...found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; (Philippians 3:9 NKJV) 

Therefore, when a believer says he is righteous, he is not proud or pompous, he is only saying who he really is in Christ. It is thus out of place to refer to believers' righteousness as filthy rag, that will amount to pouring contempt on the blood of the everlasting covenant shed by our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

The Bible says "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so..." (Psalms 107:2 NKJV) In the same light, let him who has been made righteousness by God say so!  blessed?