Whose Righteousness? (Andrew Wommack)

The word “righteousness” has become a religious cliché that has lost its meaning to many people. Even Christians are confused about what righteousness is and how to receive it. This has left our society without a clear understanding of what it takes to have a relationship with God. This is reflected in our nation’s moral collapse. It’s imperative that we get back to the basics of righteousness.

“Righteousness” and its counterpart, “righteous,” appear 540 times in 520 verses of the Bible. In contrast, “faith,” “faithfulness,” and “faithful” are only used 348 times in 328 verses. This means that there are 1.5 times as many scriptures about righteousness as there are about faith. Righteousness is important.

A layman’s definition of righteousness is simply, “right standing with God.” Righteousness is the condition of being in right relationship with the Lord. This can only happen through TOTAL faith and dependence upon Christ. There is no other way, and there is nothing we can add to our faith to obtain right relationship with the Lord (Rom. 11:6).

One of the things that blinds people to a true understanding of righteousness is confusion about how we become right in the sight of God. It is commonly thought that our actions are the determining factor in God’s judgment of our righteousness. That’s not true. There is a relationship between our actions and our right standing with God, but right relationship with God produces actions, not the other way around. That is to say, we are not made righteous by what we do.

Righteousness is a gift that comes from the Lord to those who accept what Jesus has done for them by faith (Rom. 5:17-18). The gift of salvation produces a changed heart that, in turn, changes our actions. Actions cannot change our hearts. It’s the heart of man that God looks upon (1 Sam. 16:7), and we must be righteous in our hearts to truly worship God (John 4:24).

The mistake of thinking that doing right makes us right is the same error the Pharisees made. Religion has always preached that if we clean up our actions, our hearts will become clean too. Jesus taught just the opposite (Matt. 23:25-26). It’s through a changed heart that our actions change. The heart is the issue. Actions are only an indication of what is in our hearts. Actions are the fruit the heart produces.

Modern-day Christianity often puts the emphasis on actions instead of issues of the heart. This is reflected in Christians’ excessive efforts to legislate change in people’s actions instead of changing their hearts by the preaching of the Gospel. It’s the Gospel that contains the power of God, not political action groups (Rom. 1:16). Laws only affect actions. The Gospel changes hearts. Once hearts are changed, actions change.

Contrary to popular belief, Christianity does not promote receiving justice from the Lord. Praise God for that! The Lord has a much better plan. We get what we believe.

I once developed pictures in a photography studio for a living. People would come into the studio to look at their proofs and say things like, “This picture doesn’t do me justice.” I never had the nerve to say this, but I often thought, Lady, you don’t need justice, you need mercy.

That’s the way it is with God. We sometimes call for justice but that’s not what we need. As the Scriptures say, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Is. 53:6). Again, in Romans 3:23 the Scriptures say, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10).

The wonderful plan of salvation is that those who put their faith in Jesus and what He did for us get what He deserves. On the other hand, those who do not put their total faith in Christ will ultimately get what they deserve. Believe me, that is not what they want. Religion has subtly instructed people to trust in their own goodness instead of God’s. This will never work. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

The Biblical story of the handwriting on the wall illustrates this point (Dan. 5:1-31). Belshazzar was the king of Babylon. His father, Nebuchadnezzar, had conquered the nation of Israel and brought all the wealth of the temple, along with most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, back to Babylon. During an extravagant feast, with 1,000 of his lords in attendance, Belshazzar chose to toast his gods using the golden vessels from the temple in Jerusalem, which was in open defiance of the God of Israel.

The Lord moved swiftly and dramatically by creating an image of a man’s hand, with fingers that wrote on the wall in front of Belshazzar and all his guests. Belshazzar called on all his magicians and wise men to decipher the writing, but none could. Then the queen reminded Belshazzar about Daniel who had interpreted the dreams and visions of Nebuchadnezzar when no one else could. Daniel was summoned and the writing explained.

The message from God revealed that Belshazzar had been weighed in the balances and was found wanting. Therefore, his kingdom was divided and given to the Medes and Persians. This came to pass that very night. Belshazzar was overthrown, and Darius, the Mede (Persian), took control.

If we were weighed in the balances against God’s righteousness as Belshazzar was, we too would come up short. God’s righteousness is always more in quantity and quality than ours will ever be. Our righteousness is as filthy rags compared to God’s righteousness (Is. 64:6).

Someone might say, “That’s not fair. No one can compete with God’s righteousness.” That’s exactly right! However, God’s righteousness is the standard by which everyone must be measured. So then, how can anyone be saved? The answer is that no one can be saved, if they are trusting in their own righteousness. We all must have a righteousness that exceeds anything we could ever produce through our own effort. That’s where Jesus enters.

Jesus was in right relationship with God as no one else can be. He is the Son of God. He is God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). He is holy and pure and without sin, yet He became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21), through no wrongdoing on His part. He took our sin in His own body on the cross (1 Pet. 2:24). “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Is. 53:4-5).

In return for Jesus taking our sin, those who put their faith in Him get His righteousness instead of their own. It’s not our actions that make us acceptable to the Father. It’s our trust in Jesus that imparts the righteousness of Jesus into our born-again spirits that makes us in right standing with God.

Those who don’t understand this righteousness, which comes from God as a gift, become frustrated trying to establish their own righteousness through good works (Rom. 10:3). It won’t work. It’s an all or nothing situation (Rom. 11:6). We must trust completely in what Jesus did for us to obtain right relationship with God. Any trust in our own goodness will void the atonement Christ made for us (Gal. 5:4).

This is precisely the condition of millions of people in the body of Christ today. They receive salvation by putting total faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, but then they return to believing that the Lord still relates to them on the basis of their works, even after their salvation. That’s not true.

Colossians 2:6 says, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” That means if you were saved by putting faith in God’s grace alone, then you maintain that relationship in the same way. Some people sing “Just As I Am Without One Plea” when they are born again. They need to sing this song all the way through their Christian lives.

Failure to understand this truth is at the root of all guilt and condemnation. Satan’s only inroad into our lives is sin. If we understand our right standing with God on the basis of what Jesus did for us, and not by our own actions, then Satan’s power to condemn is gone. Those who live with a feeling of unworthiness are not trusting in God’s righteousness but are looking to their own actions to obtain right standing with God. That will never work.

Joyce Meyer Interviewing Bob Yandian on the Power of the Word of God

Bob Yandian is one of the clearest and most dynamic preachers in the church. This episode will bless you and inspire you to live in the Word!

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Boy Walks Without Crutches – Oral Roberts

Here is a recorded miracle of a boy with polio being healed. It is beautiful to watch.

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12 Year Old Speaking Up For Life

This child seems more articulate and more logical than many adults.

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Jesus Wants You Well

He paid the complete irrevocable price for your complete healing.  All you have to do is believe and receive.

Jesus told the woman with the issue of blood: Your faith has made you whole.

What has your faith done for you today?  Has it just done nothing or have you reached out and touched Him so you can walk in divine health?

Blessings,
Ben

The Second Witness

I was just looking at 2 Cor. 13.1 today which says:

In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.

Think about that for a long time – a word needs two witnesses to be established.  If you wake up in the morning with the symptoms of a headache, at that moment the only witness you have a headache is your body.  If you only have one witness, the word CANNOT be established.

But if you start saying “I have such a headache”, you have become the second witness.  By the time you have told your husband, your wife, your colleagues, your friends, you established your headache.  Ouch!

Some people can do this before they even get sick: “I am coming down with something, I know it” or “I always get sick this time of year.”  People who laugh at us faith Christians because we say “I am healed” when the symptoms disagree will happily say “I am sick” when there are NO symptoms of sickness!

The Word of God is absolutely clear: By the stripes of Jesus you are completely physically healed (1 Pet. 2.24).  However, the Word of God is ONE witness.  You need to become the second witness to the Word.  Say out loud and with confidence: “I am healed by the stripes of Jesus.”

Stop being the second witness to your body and start being the second witness to the Word.

Sometimes people say that if you say “I am healed” when your symptoms say “I am sick” then you are lying.  I say that people like that are spiritually blind.  Elisha said that there are more with us than those against us (2 Kings 6) – yet if you stood there and counted people on each side then you would call Elisha a liar because looking in the natural Elisha was wrong.

But Elisha was looking into the spiritual and saw that there were angels all around.  If you look into the Word of God, which is spirit and life, you will see that – no matter what the natural sees – you are healed by the stripes of Jesus.

If you agree with the spiritual, you will always walk in life and peace.

Blessings,
Ben

Sanitization or Sanctification?

Sanitization or Sanctification?

By Bob DeWaay

A reader phoned me recently and explained how he has seen churches depart from Bible teaching only to institute various programs for better living. He made an intriguing statement: “These programs do not sanctify, they sanitize.” And he was absolutely right about that. Let me unpack that idea and show from Scripture that this is the case. It is possible to use human wisdom and good advice programs in order to help people achieve better living.

It is possible to get an alcoholic sober, an abusive husband to be considerate and caring, a compulsive gambler to quit, a person driven to make money at the expense of family to change priorities, and to help an unhappy person become happy. All of this can be done without any special work of grace. In fact, it can be done without religion at all. I once heard a debate between two college professors, one an atheist and the other a Christian. Toward the end of the debate the atheist made an interesting statement. He said, “You do not need a god or religion to have a good, happy life. I have been happily married for many years, have wonderful children and grandchildren, live a moral life, and could not ask for anything more from life. I do not need religion and neither do you.”

Sadly, many Christians have so redefined Christianity that they would not know how to respond to such a statement. It is true that many people lead happy, relatively moral lives without God. But what they cannot obtain is right standing before the Holy God who created the universe.

When Christianity is reduced to a “better-living-through-religion” program it does not offer anything that some atheists (like the one in that debate) already have. It is telling when churches fill up their docket with seminars designed to help people solve life problems through general revelation. General revelation is available to all through the normal means of knowing.

All societies have their own aphorisms which they pass along-their collective “good advice.” It is not a sin to give people good advice gleaned from general revelation, but neither is to confuse that advice with Christ’s mandate: “Teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matthew 28:20a).

Two key differences differentiate good advice from the commands of Scripture:

1) Good advice is never binding and can be safely (from an eternal perspective) ignored.

2) Good advice is not sanctifying.

The atheist with a nice family and a happy life is clearly not sanctified. The term “sanctification” means to be made holy. Holiness cannot be gleaned from general revelation. So those helped by good advice drawn from human wisdom may be sanitized, but unless they repent and believe the gospel they will never be sanctified.

Sanctification comes through redemption and the means of grace. Paul wrote: “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1Corinthians 1:30, 31). That atheist was boasting against the Lord! Christians can only boast in the Lord. Dispensing human wisdom can produce many satisfied customers.

A local pastor, known for preaching the prosperity gospel, was exposed in the newspaper for his lavish lifestyle and possible misappropriation of church funds. One of his members wrote a letter to the editor defending the pastor. The letter writer cited all of the positive changes that had happened since attending that church: a better family, better finances, freedom from addiction, and so forth.

But he did not mention anything distinctive to Christianity. Some people who believe the health and wealth gospel actually are healthy and wealthy. But so are some atheists. Many churches simply have given up salvation and sanctification and settled for sanitization-clean and happy “Christian” living without regard to holiness in the sight of God.

Paul discusses this in Colossians: If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use) in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. (Colossians 2:20-23)

The cleaned up sinner is still “fleshly” because the only alternative to the flesh is the Spirit, and people do not receive the Spirit by works of law: This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Galatians 3:2, 3)

There is no definite article with “law” in the Greek; Paul is speaking of “works of law.” Whether the Mosaic Law or any other, people do not receive the Holy Spirit by works of law. Anyone without the Holy Spirit is unsaved and unsanctified (see Romans 8:4-8).

Anyone without the Spirit is motivated by the flesh (1John 2:16, 17). A person may be able to change his lusts (i.e., from the lust of the flesh to the boastful pride of life) through human wisdom dispensed through a program, but no one can escape the lusts of the world by any means except for a work of grace through the gospel.

The law can restrain evil, but it cannot produce holiness. We do not escape from worldly corruption by any means other than the promises of God found in Scripture: “For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust” (2Peter 1:4). This being the case, why have so many churches filled their sermons and programs with ideas gleaned through general revelation that amount to good advice? The answer is found most likely in their constituency.

Clear teaching of the word of God will sanctify those who are truly saved. Jesus prayed: “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth” (John 17:17). That means that God does a work of grace on the inside that changes the motivations of the heart, not just certain behaviors (Hebrews 4:12). The behavior does change, objectively, because the Bible contains instruction in godly living that should be taught with the binding authority of God. These instructions are commands, not good advice.

They cannot safely be ignored. But the good news is that God’s grace comes to us through His word, enabling and motivating us to obey Him. A church becomes filled with unsaved people when “better living through Jesus” teachings and programs become the norm rather than gospel preaching and Bible teaching.

The people are there to find the sort of life the atheist bragged about having. They may get a nice, happy life through human wisdom dispensed in the name of Christianity. But holiness is what such persons cannot find through human wisdom. Holiness comes from a work of grace, not a decision to change some things for the better. Sinners lacking the gospel but sanitized through a church program may end up in a worse condition than before. If, in the name of Christianity, the drunkenness or marriage problems go away, those who benefited may think they are saved when, in fact, they are lost.

False assurance is dangerous and if not remedied will lead to eternal damnation. The good advice approach assumes that humans possess the motivation and ability they need; that they simply need instruction on how to put what they already have to work. The real situation is that we are sinners without hope and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12). We do not have an engineering problem; we have a spiritual one. That spiritual problem is remedied by what God does by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8)-not what we do through human wisdom.

The Bible tells us to “pursue” sanctification, because without it we will never see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). Only sanctification through the blood of Jesus makes us fit to see the Lord. Sanitization through good advice cannot do that.

A guest to the live Penn & Teller show gives a surprisingly wonderful gift to Penn

Listen to how an atheist views the importance of evangelism to a Christian!

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Revival

Some excellent quotes about revival and the state of the contemporary church!

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