Radically Restored to Oneness With GodSample

Jesus identified with us at our worst so that we could be identified with Him at His best. We are righteous before God because of Jesus’ actions and obedience on our behalf. This is the gift that He offers to all mankind.

The issue of sin and its place in a person’s life is changed dramatically when a person believes in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Now on the resurrection side of the cross, the Father is calling His people to righteousness. God does not call His people out on their sin. He calls them up into who they already are. He contrasts the roots of the old nature that need to be removed with the person we already are in Jesus. He offers us freedom, not judgment. Paul writes:

For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17).

We eat and drink to sustain our bodies to physically interact with life and all it brings. Similarly, we need to sustain our spiritual lives to fully undertake the assignments we have been given to see the Kingdom of God advanced. This involves partaking of the qualities that righteousness, peace, and joy bring to us. The free gift of righteousness helps me to reign in life, adds to my fruitfulness in God’s Kingdom, and positions me to live as a much-loved son of God and heir with Christ.

Do not allow shame, guilt, and condemnation to rob you of your confidence before God and the knowledge that you have the standing of a child of God and an heir of Christ Jesus. The sin that inhabited our old nature has deep roots. It is a daily work of grace to conquer it. We are becoming everything we can be for Him at His pace, through the work of the Holy Spirit and the Word.