Real Solid Righteousness

Are you a righteous person? WAIT! Before you rush to say “Ah-huh” or shake your head yes, you might want to understand the biblical meaning of righteousness. Jesus taught us about righteousness in the Beatitudes:

    “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5:4-6)

What does Jesus mean about Christians mourning? Does it mean mourning over lost ones? It could, I can personally testify to the Holy Spirit’s comfort that I experience when I grieve over lost loved ones, particularly my son.

Does Jesus mean mourning is over the state of the world? You’re getting warm. Remember that we looking for ways to adjust our attitudes and today we need to look at an attitude adjustment towards sin.

Do you know why the American Church has become a harlot? Because we the Body love our sin. When is the last time you saw the Body of Christ manifested in the life of a church mourn its own sin? And for that matter, why don’t we as a body mourn over our sin? Because we don’t see sin the way God does.

If we would look upon our sin with holy eyes we would surely mourn over it. And we would hate it! IF we were to begin hating our sin then we would deal with it the way God deals with it. Remember this verse?

    “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

Don’t we Christians just love that verse?!! It is one of our favorite “promise” verses! It is one of the best selling magnet verses and don’t forget all the Christian radio stations across the fruited plain who use it as “today’s power verse”!

What most Christians fail to understand is that is a CONDITIONAL verse in that it begins with the word IF. If we confess our sins then we actually get to what we are looking for from God. The problem is too many of us, me worst of all, brush over the beginning of that verse.

And if we Christians and Positive Pastors were to actually take that verse in CONTEXT then we would notice that it is bookended by two other conditional verses:

    “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8-10)

Oh come on now Bro Dave you know none of SAY we have no sin or CLAIM we haven not sinned. Of course I know that, but does God? Are you telling me you have no unconfessed sin in your life? If you can say that then you are truly blessed and “shall inherit the earth” because you are meek.

The Greek transliteration for meek that Jesus used gives the impression of a horse being broken; he is gentle yet still powerful. Meekness only rhymes with weakness but it means a completely different attitude than weakness. It means power under control. And that only comes from us overcoming our pride.

Oh but Bro Dave I so try to overcome my pride daily and I always seem to fail! I know, me too. And God finally showed me why. Go back to the Beatitudes, verse 6 specifically. The answer is there:

    “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Is that you? Do you CRAVE righteousness? Is it your spiritual sustenance or are you still in the touchy-feely mode when it comes to being right with God? Is righteousness to you being moved to tears by the choir or feeling wonderfully blessed because of all God has given you? Don’t get me wrong, those are wonderful emotions to have, but it is not real solid righteousness. Oswald Chambers explains the real meaning of righteousness:

    “No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretence. What Our Lord wants us to present to Him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavor, but real solid sin; that is all He can take from us. And what does He give in exchange for our sin? Real solid righteousness. But we must relinquish all pretence of being any thing, all claim of being worthy of God’s consideration.”

In the Army when a piece of personal field equipment became worn out we could go to supply and do a direct exchange (DX) of our old piece for a new one. We called it DX-ing something.

Beloved, it is high time for you and me to DX real solid sin, specific sin, for real solid righteousness. We can no longer just be real honest with God or try really hard to be holy. We must let go of our sin and the root of all sin is pride within our hearts. When we do that we shall surely mourn over it.

And when we truly mourn over our sin we will see Jesus in a new light.

And then our attitude towards our Precious Savior will radically change.

More on that tomorrow…

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2011 David Jeffers

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