Justified

Firstly, in case you are wondering, this is not a post about formatting! Haha! We are continuing on from last week’s message. So, what does Jesus’ righteousness mean for us? Dictionaries define righteousness as the quality of being morally right or justifiable, or behavior that is morally right or justifiable. Now, we can all justify our behavior, that does not mean our behavior is justifiable.

See the thing is, by ourselves, our behavior is not great. Have a look at the Israelites. God rescued them from slavery, created a path in the Red Sea for them to walk on dry ground. Led them with a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. Yet a few days into their journey they built a gold calf as an idol (using gold that God had blessed them with) so they could worship it and make it their god.

That does not make any sense. But we do it. Not quite like the Israelites but in our own way we make idols out of things that God gave to bless us. God finds us in need of a job, we cry out to Him for help, He gives us a job and now we can’t make it to church because of the very job God gave us. We can justify our actions, but it does not make them justifiable or righteous or morally right.

So as humans, we have a propensity to wander towards the grey areas of life. We are not morally right. Romans 3:23 (right in the middle of talking about God’s righteousness) says, “for we have all sinned and are in need of the glory of God.” What does this mean? It means, we don’t have any righteousness to stand on.

So, when we go to God in our present state and without Jesus, our sins cry out against us and we cannot have a close relationship with God. We are estranged. When we rely on the things we have done or not done to go to God, we are putting on our filthy rags again and they stink to God. However, when we finally accept what Jesus did for us, and we put on the correct clothes as we talked about last week, and we clothe ourselves in Jesus righteousness, then we can approach God. When God looks at us, He looks at us favorably, the same way He would look at Jesus.

Imagine being in the throne room of God, the Creator of all that exists and have Him look at you with joy and adoration, love and acceptance. That is how God looks at us when we are in Jesus. We are no longer estranged. We are His beloved children!

Jesus’ righteousness clothes us so we can run to Papa God in our day of trouble not run away. Hebrews 4:16 says, “So now we draw near freely and boldly to where grace is enthroned, to receive mercy’s kiss and discover the grace we urgently need to strengthen us in our time of weakness.” When we go to God it is not about what we did or did not do, it’s about the finished work of Jesus.

That does not mean we brush past our sin, we confess it and ask for forgiveness. 1 John 1:8-10, “If we boast that we have no sin, we’re only fooling ourselves and are strangers to the truth. But if we freely admit our sins when his light uncovers them, he will be faithful to forgive us every time. God is just to forgive us our sins because of Christ, and he will continue to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we claim that we’re not guilty of sin when God uncovers it with his light, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.”

So righteousness is not about being sin free. It is about putting our faith in Jesus. When we do that, God sees you as pure and morally justified. How wild is that! My Pastor Glenn reminded us recently that justified means “just as if I had never sinned.” That’s how God sees you when you are in Jesus. That is beautiful.

That means we can pray and talk to God about anything because we are made right with Him. He wants nothing more than to hear from you. The random thoughts, the serious prayers, the random conversations at the end of the day. God wants to hear from you. When you believe in Jesus, you are spiritually clothing yourself in Jesus. You are in Jesus and that is the safest place you can be. Make some time and sit with God in His Presence. He wants to be with you. You have been made righteous and have been justified by your faith in Jesus.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano.