Righteous Desire

The fear of the wicked will come upon him, and the desire of the righteous will be granted. ...Proverbs 10:24 NKJV

Reading this verse, it is clear that the wicked are preoccupied with fears whereas the righteous with desires.

Both fear and desire require faith. What is fear? Fear believes that something bad is going to happen. To fear is to focus our thought on what we don't want happen. What is desire? It is to hope that something good will happen. To desire is to focus our thought on what we want happen.

The scary thing is that both can happen, depending on our choice. Job said the thing I greatly feared has come upon me. Jesus said whatsoever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them.

We better get a hold of ourselves how we think. Paul gave young Timothy a priceless tip how to conduct life. He says God has not given you a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power of love and of a sound mind. The Amplified Bible translates a “disciplined” mind. Yes, we have been given a spirit of disciplined mind to focus on thinking what we want happen, not what we don’t want happen.

The choice is simple, isn’t it? But you will be surprised how many choose fear over desire. Some may even think that it is being responsible to fear or worry, like Job did. Some may think it sinful to desire much.

But you know better, just as you know that I didn't try to take things out of context because I read this verse from the perspective of the New Testament. Who is righteous according to the NT? God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf that we might be the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So you are righteous, whatever others would have you believe, whatever you feel about how Solomon defined righteousness and wickedness in the whole chapter of Proverbs 10.

So righteous one, you know what to choose.

Congratulation! Your desire will be granted.

The Power of Righteousness

The Old Testament emphasizes on the power of sin, whereas the New Testament stresses on the power of righteousness. Believers ought to differentiate between the two, else they will be confused while reading their Bible and not be able to reap the full benefit for their lives.

One powerful illustration to bring across the point is this: in the Old Testament, touching a leper makes one unclean; in the New Testament, touching a leper makes the leper clean. In fact Jesus authorized his disciples to cleanse the lepers (Matt 10:8).

Have you ever thought about this: in asking them to touch the leper Jesus is asking His disciples to break the Law! Why could his disciples now break the Law? Because it is no more about right and wrong, it is about Life. Law defines what is right and what is wrong, but it cannot give life.

Remember what happened in the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve chose to know right and wrong instead of choosing Life. And so began mankind’s downward spiral until the Redeemer comes.

The Old Testament’s emphasis is the power of sin. Again and again it tells us that we are unable to overcome the power of sin (and it is sin that causes all human misery). All that passing laws against sin did was to produce more lawbreakers (Rom 5:20, MSG). That is exactly why we need a savior. After the Savior has done His job saving, sin has no more hold over us. We have been made righteous by His work and now have His Life living in us and out of us!

It is a beautiful thing that we can now expect the Life of God to flow out of us. When it does, it will overcome all forms of darkness surrounding us. Sin, sickness, oppression, fear, poverty and you name it; they have no fight with this Life. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly (John 10:10, NKJV).

So for believers the focus now is the power of righteousness, not the power of sin. Christians are New Testament believers!

If we fail to grasp this we will be looking for the power of sin even in the New Testament. If we insist on trying to be right on our own, it is like trying to be like Adam and Eve, doing it all over again. This is reading the Bible backwards.

What Made You a Sinner?

Dead Old Man (2)

The fact that Jesus has wrought for us much more than the forgiveness of sins is clear from this verse: For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Rom 5:10, NKJV). Through His death we have forgiveness from our sins, so that we are reconciled to God – restored to fellowship. But the verse clearly states that that’s not all. After this His life also saves us. Saves us from what? It is like this:

His death saves us from our sins. His life saves us from ourselves – the sinner.

How one is constituted a sinner? Is it because of anything he does? Actually, we are not accorded the “honour” by the Bible.  The Bible says it’s because of Adam’s disobedience that we become sinners. So, we were made sinners quite apart from anything we did: For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners… (Rom 5:19, NKJV). Contrary to popular opinion, we don’t become sinners because we sin, not according to the definition in the New Testament. “It’s not my fault!” - Probably there’s more truth in this statement than we realise.

So, what about the condition we inherited from Adam our forefather? What have we become as a result? What kind of nature did we inherit from him?

The sinner is one prone to sins. He cannot help it. To sin is his nature. Before one comes to Christ, he carries this nature. There is one verse that never fails to amaze me, it is astounding:

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. (Rom 6:20, NKJV)

Let me give you some orientation. Paul was speaking in term of conversion. He calls those who have not come to Christ “slaves of sin”. We were all once slaves of sin because of Adam’s disobedience. Because of Jesus’ work we are no more. But we really need to take in the full impact of the above verse to begin to understand the condition we were in.

According to Paul, we were “free in regard to righteousness”. I don’t know about you, I find his language rather peculiar. Normally we use the word “free” to denote exemption from bad things. Free from debt, free from sickness etc. But “free in regard to righteousness”? Paul really wanted our attention! He was essentially saying that we were excluded from the state or position of righteousness and thereby exempted from the acts of righteousness. In a sense, we were imprisoned in sin. When we were in such a state, we were not expected to be good or to do good. In fact, we were expected to sin! Slaves of sin can only sin! The following verse (Rom 6:21) states that only bad fruit can come forth from such a state: a sinner can only sin.

There you have it: the problem of the sinner. Now you know what made you a sinner, and a sinner cannot help but sin, do you know how God solve the sinner problem for you?

Stay tuned …


Scripture Link: BibleGateway.com

Much More Group Presentation Apr 5, 2011

Do You Need to Confess Your Sins to Be Forgiven?

I am concerned particularly about God’s forgiveness, not men’s. And I am talking to those who confess Christ as Lord.

We have spent a few weeks on the subject of righteousness now so I am sure you are in a good position to ponder the above question with me. Now you know that you are righteous, and that not of your own doing, it’s all because of Jesus’ work. Ask yourself this question first: am I still righteous when I sin?

If your answer were yes (Congratulation! You got the right answer!), that would mean you think that you are forgiven of your sin even without your asking God for forgiveness. Else it would have to mean that you think you are not forgiven without asking God but at the same time you are still righteous – you are not forgiven but you are righteous. I think the latter is a very laughable proposition.

“Hey Joshua, it’s all very easy to say, how about scripture like 1 John1: 9? Aren’t we supposed to keep short account with God? And didn’t Jesus plainly tell us to ask God to forgive us our trespasses in His model prayer? Our pastor always asks us to examine ourselves and confess our sins before partaking the Lord’s Supper, is he wrong?”

I am well aware of your doubts; they are legitimate, or at least they seem to be.  Actually, I have lived  under that kind of understanding for much of the twenty years of my Christian life. I will give you a convincing answer in the presentation (next Tuesday Apr 5, 2011, 8pm at my house).  You are welcome to join us.

Scripture Link: BibleGateway.com

The Three Kinds of Righteousness (9)

Righteousness Restored

E. W. Kenyon is one of my favorite authors. I remember the first time I read his book Jesus the Healer, his teaching strike me as being like what the gospel writer described about Jesus’ teaching: it was with great authority. It is an understatement to say that I was in awe. I have never read anyone more certain of his own words than Kenyon was. Today, to conclude our present series, I would like to quote Kenyon from one of his other books The Two Kinds of Righteousness (in italics below).

Sin consciousness was born at the Fall. It was manifested in Adam’s fear to meet God and his desire to cover his nakedness. (Genesis 3)

Our human ancestor Mr. Adam got us all into this fix. It was all his fault really. Ever since then all man wanted was to get rid of this feeling of falling short. There is always a gnawing feeling inside of not being good enough. That’s why religion was invented – to get us back to feeling right again, doing our utmost to reach certain set standard that we think might find God’s approval. This is the righteousness of Religion (the Pharisees). But alas, this is not good enough. Not according to God.

Jesus the Son of God came in the flesh to show them why it is not good enough. He practically said that all that religion did couldn’t hit the mark and never will. He told them what it means to be truly good in God’s eyes. This is the righteousness of the Law. Mind you, Jesus didn’t ask us to meet God’s approval by doing what the Law truly says. He was merely showing us the standard we need to fulfill if we want to meet God’s approval by the Law. No amount of effort from us could be good enough to meet that standard.

It was to fix this age-old problem – the fix that Adam got us into – that Jesus showed up. He did all that need to be done to give us His righteousness. He said He had finished His work (John 19:30).

The Revelation of God and the development of that Revelation have been to one end – to restore Righteousness to man.

The meaning of Righteousness in this sense is the ability to stand in the presence of God without the sense of sin, guilt, or inferiority.

This Righteousness that is revealed is the Righteousness that the believer receives in Christ.

In a nutshell, this is what His Righteousness is all about. Have you received His Righteousness? It’s free!

(To claim your free gift, click here. You may want to let me know after receiving it, let me share your joy!)

Scripture Link: BibleGateway.com