The Word of God – Showing us that God is Righteous

The-Word-of-God-Showing-us-that-God-is-Righteous

Verses for Today

Exodus 20:5b visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

Exodus 20:6 Yet showing lovingkindness to thousands of generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

Psalm 89:14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; / Lovingkindness and truth go before Your face.

1 Peter 2:23 Who being reviled did not revile in return; suffering, He did not threaten but kept committing all to Him who judges righteously;

Isaiah 56:1 Thus says Jehovah, / Preserve justice and do righteousness, / For My salvation is about to come / And My righteousness is about to be revealed.

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, both to Jew first and to Greek.

Romans 1:17a For the righteousness of God is revealed in it

Fellowship

The Ten Commandments also reveal that our God is righteous. Because He is righteous, He will visit those who hate Him for three or four generations. If He failed to do this, He would not be a righteous God. He must act in this way in order to indicate that He is righteous. If you hate Him, He will deal with you according to His righteousness. At the same time, however, He is merciful and loving. (Life Study of Exodus, p. 599)

When God says He will do something, He is bound by His righteousness to carry it out. This should encourage all of us. No matter what is happening around us, God is righteous. He will reward the loving seekers and He will judge the evil. The Apostle Peter said of the Lord Jesus: “Who being reviled did not revile in return; suffering, He did not threaten but kept committing all to Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). Because God is righteous we can be like the Lord Jesus and commit all things to Him.

God is just. He judges fairly. It is therefore quite reasonable that we also come to fear God for His righteousness. This is a healthy fear of God.

God is righteous. Although He loves us, when we do something that is not right in God’s eyes, there are consequences. We should heed God’s word and be mindful that there are consequences if we do not obey His word (Church in Irvine, Lessons, God is Righteous).

With this understanding of God’s righteousness, that it is an encouragement to us in the midst of the suffering in the world, and that it is something to be feared, we want to see another awesome application of God’s righteousness. It is because God is righteous, that we are ultimately saved.

According to John 3:16, salvation is out of God’s love, and according to Ephesians 2:5 and 8, salvation is by God’s grace. But in Romans 1:17 Paul says that salvation comes by the righteousness of God. Neither love nor grace is related to the law. No law forces us to love or to give grace. Whether we love or not we are still lawful, and whether we extend grace or not we are still legal. In a sense, God is not bound to love us. Furthermore, He is not legally bound to show us grace. Righteousness, on the contrary, is very much related to the law.

Because Christ has fulfilled all the righteous requirements of God’s law, God is bound to save us. If you say, “Lord Jesus, You are my Savior,” you can turn to God and say, “God, You must forgive me, whether You like it or not. You are righteous if You forgive me, but You are unrighteous if You do not forgive me.” We can say this to God because Christ has fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the law, and, as a result, God is bound by His righteousness to save us. Righteousness, therefore, is a mighty bond God cannot escape—He must save us because He is righteous. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, (Msgs. 001-020), Chapter 9, by Witness Lee)

Even if we don’t understand the depths of God’s salvation, we should all at least see this: We are saved because of God’s righteousness. 1 John 1:9 says: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If you want to study this application of God’s righteousness a little more, we invite you to read more on this topic.

Morning Revival Exercises – Confessing Your Sins

Morning-Revival-Confessing-your-sins

Verses for Today

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

Matthew 1:21 And she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.

1 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 His Son cleanses us from every sin. 

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Psalm 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, / So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Fellowship

When we sin, there is a separation between us and God; we just can’t look Him in the eye so easily because there is a real guilt of sin with us. By confessing we can be free from this guilt and this separation. This is something we should deal with as soon as we can. When we come to the Lord in the morning and are conscious of any sin we’ve committed, we should confess to the Lord right away and receive His forgiveness.

Notice how 1 John 1:9 says, “that if we confess our sins, HE IS FAITHFUL and RIGHTEOUS to forgive us…” In other words, His forgiveness is based on who He is and what He’s done. All we have to do on our side to receive His forgiveness is to confess. This is the best news of the day! For anyone who confesses, Jesus Christ is there to forgive. Hallelujah! 

God actually has to forgive us – not only because He said that He would and He would surely not go against His own word, but because He is even righteously obligated to forgive us. To see this, we must understand God’s righteousness. God required the shedding of blood for our sins. God is righteous, altogether just. He cannot simply turn a blind eye to injustices. He judges sinners righteously, and, because He cannot tolerate any sin, the Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

In His great mercy and wisdom, God made a plan to save us from the wages of sin. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, this One who is God, Jehovah, the Great I Am (John 8:24, 58), to die in our stead and to pay the price for our sins. Isaiah 53:5 says: “But He was wounded because of our transgressions; / He was crushed because of our iniquities; / The chastening for our peace was upon Him, / And by His stripes we have been healed.” and verse 8 of the same chapter says that, “He was cut off out of the land of the living / For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due”. 

Jesus Christ was the sinless one. He did not have to die for Himself because He had no sin. Yet he paid the price for all the sins of mankind. The debt that we owed was fully paid. By His death on the cross, all of God’s righteousness could be fulfilled. God required the blood, and Jesus’ blood satisfied God’s requirement. Matthew 1:21 says: “And she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.” Had you realized that Jesus was born to come and die for us? How we praise and thank Him! We were supposed to die for our sins, but God gave us Jesus as the provision to satisfy God’s righteous requirement.  (UUCOC.org, Forgiven because God is Faithful and Righteous , Dec 23, 2020)

Don’t miss the video from Joseph in Oklahoma City

Weekly Video – The Vision of Consecration

Consecration is about responding to the heavenly vision. One example mentioned in the message is, when the Lord shines on anything in our being, if He says something to us, when He exposes something in our life, we don’t need to hide nor make a promise to the Lord saying, “this is the last time.”. Rather, we just need to agree with Him. “That’s true Lord. I am that way. Forgive and cleanse me.” Then we can continue advancing in the Lord.

Continue reading “Weekly Video – The Vision of Consecration”

An Exceedingly Good Land – How to Possess the Land

In this Bible study we reviewed the history of the children of Israel, as they left Egypt and the things they experienced on their way to the Good Land. The Lord really led us to focus on two matters: Confessing our Sins, and Eating Christ – through His Word.

Although we are on a college campus, reading many books and articles and studying topics thoroughly, our eating of Christ in His Word is something special. We must come to His Word, linger there, contact the living Person there, and learn to exercise our spirit, our deepest part, to receive Him, digest Him, and assimilate Him.

Why did God bring us to this university? To meet other Christians and mutually help one another to… POSSESS THE LAND!

Download this short Bible Study: An Exceedingly Good Land 09