You are the Righteousness of God in Christ Jesus

This post is penned and crafted by my adorable and gracious wife, Catie. I know you will be really blessed by not only her words, but the beautiful heart in which it is shared….

Righteous. Did you know you are righteous? The righteousness of God in Christ Jesus to be exact. How incredibly amazing is that? You are righteous when you are patient. You are righteous when you’ve lost your patience. You are righteous when you are kind. You are righteous when you are unkind…because it is not something we could ever earn. We are righteous in Christ. (II Cor. 5:21)

However, there is something that can keep us all from this truth: Condemnation. Unfortunately, condemnation was something I became well acquainted with throughout my formative years. It always seemed to be there hovering, like a heavy, dark oppression. Until. Until that is, I got a deeper revelation of this scripture: I John 1:7 “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.” If we were to read this in the original Greek, it would read: “…the blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing you…” Oh my. We are literally walking around with our own little rain cloud of cleansing. All the time. It is never ending and it just keeps cleansing.

When we make a mistake, more often than not, blame or condemnation can immediately spring up in our hearts. And even worse, a sad spiral can begin to spin as we then condemn ourselves for something we did 3 months ago or 3 years ago! When we miss the mark (the actual definition of sin), let’s just imagine ourselves under that waterfall of His love and cleansing, because that is the reality of who we really are: Forgiven. And Righteous. And greatly loved. Besides, He doesn’t remember our sin anyway (Hebrews 8:12). 🙂 Why should we? And why should we punish ourselves? (Please hear my heart, I am not saying there are not times to apologise, I merely want to encourage us all to forgive ourselves and to know we are forgiven.)

As Jesus is, so are we in this world. (I John 4:17) Is Jesus healthy and whole. Yup, so are we. Is Jesus righteous? Yes, indeed, that would mean us too.

I believe every time we focus on the Truth that we are the righteousness of God in Christ (always and forever), we are glorifying Jesus. We are thanking Him and magnifying His love and goodness in our lives. How can that not be a good thing? When we focus on self, we glorify self. We are denying the amazing, fanatisic, too good to be true (BUT IT IS) gift of living in His righteousness. Let us be Jesus conscious. Because really, we will be reminding ourselves of who we truly are (remember I John 4:17?).

II Corinthians 3:18 “…we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

My prayer for us all is that not by might nor power, but by His Spirit within us we would indeed awaken to righteousness. (I Cor. 15:34 KJV) I pray that His Voice of Love will be the prevailing Voice in our hearts and that we acknowledge, more than ever before, this astounding Truth: that always we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, always we are forgiven.

I will end by quoting the hubs: “What He has and who is He is what you have and who you are.” ~ Gerard Barton

You are perfectly righteous, Beloved, as am I. May we never forget.

Your sis in Christ,

Cate