Rom 1:17 For in the Gospel a righteousness which God ascribes is revealed, both springing from faith and leading to faith [disclosed through the way of faith that arouses to more faith]. As it is written, The man who through faith is just and upright shall live and shall live by faith.    (AMP)

Read these words again and again; read them slowly and meditate upon them; ask the Holy Spirit to give you a ‘revelation’ of righteousness (right standing) by faith which is found in this verse.

For in the Gospel a right standing which God ascribes is ‘revealed‘……….. springing from ‘faith‘………

When we became born again, God by His grace gave us faith to believe that the blood of His Son Jesus Christ cleansed us from all sin; He also gave us the gift of righteousness (Rom5:17); that is, that we have right standing before Him.

So as a Christian we experienced faith/righteousness at salvation, but to progress we must have a ‘revelation’ of faith/righteousness, because the scripture goes on to teach that we must ‘live’ by faith/righteousness;

The righteous shall ‘live‘ by faith.

Unfortunately many of us experienced faith/righteousness at salvation but continued to live out our lives by our own strength, consequently we still struggle with judgement, condemnation, guilt, fear, shame etc.

Struggling with such things makes it impossible to believe God’s Word because we don’t believe we have right standing before Him; and if we are going to live out the truth of God’s Word we must, must,  have this revelation.

Right believing produces right living.

Meditation point: The righteous shall live by faith.

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Eph 4:15  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.  (NIV)

This verse teaches that one of the character traits of a mature Christian is being able to speak the truth in love; Ever hear the expression, ‘Win a battle but lose the war’, or, ‘ Win an argument but lose the person’.

In a dual with swords the only way to win is to kill your opponent, whereas, when we debate the Gospel with an unbeliever, we want to win our opponent not kill them. Let’s look at 6 ways we can do this:

1) We must give full respect to their argument. Sneering, looking down our nose or displaying a superior attitude will drive that person away. Nobody likes to be belittled or spoken down to.

2) Our tone of voice is also important. People immediately sense disrespect, animosity and dislike.

3) We must listen to our opponents viewpoint; Showing them respect by looking them in the face, where possible showing our agreement by a nod of the head or a smile and allowing them to finish their discourse.

4) We must use, ‘wisdom’; Prov 11:30 He/She who wins souls is wise. Using King James language, big sounding theological words or flowery speech will muddy the waters and bring confusion; As much as possible, use non religious language. Instead of saying, “The hand of the Lord was upon Paul”, say ” The presence of God was with Paul”.

Without realising it, some of us have adopted a form of Christianese which is a foreign language to an unbeliever. Therefore we must train our mind to substitute such words with speech they can understand.

5) If we don’t know the answer to a question or topic of debate, say so. Don’t try to cover up or change the subject. People respect someone who humbly acknowledges what they don’t know.

6) Finally, we must look upon them with love. Love can be seen in our body language, our eyes, our words and disposition.

Let’s remember we are there to win the person not the argument. It’s been calculated that most people are spoken to about Jesus Christ by approx 20 people before they come to know him as their Saviour. Most of the time we are a link in that chain so let’s remember to pray for them that what we have said will impact their life and prepare them for their next encounter with God.

Meditation point: Showing love and exercising wisdom will do more to win someone for the Gospel than the greatest theological argument.

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John 18:38   Pilate said, “What is truth?”  (TM)

In this verse, Pilate is cross examining Jesus to find out who He was. The Jews were baying for Jesus blood and Pilate wanted to be sure he knew the background details to Jesus situation before deciding what to do.

Jesus declared to Pilate that He was a King and had come to proclaim the truth of his Father. Pilate immediately responded, “What is truth?”. Pilate was confused because the Romans worshipped many gods. They were also immersed in the Greek culture which had many gods and were obsessed with knowledge, reason and philosophy. Remember Paul on Mars’ Hill. Acts 17:23 I found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.  (NIV)

The situation of Pilate’s time is not much different to our time. Today there are many gods and philosophies and society has developed a pick & mix approach to personal religion. “Let’s see, I’ll have a spoonful of new age, a drop of Islam, a squirt of astrology and I’ll mix it all together with confusion, oops! sorry, i meant Confucius”.

Christians can only counteract these untruths with the truth. Who is, ‘the truth’. The truth is Jesus Christ. John 14:6  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.   (NKJV)  Jesus is also called, ‘the Word of God’. John 1:1-2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.   (NKJV)  We can better understand this verse by substituting the word, ‘Word’ for Jesus: In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God.

So the, the Word (Jesus Christ) came to earth and proclaimed the truth; and as Christians we must settle it in our hearts that the Bible which contains the Word of God is the truth. How can we do this. We spend time meditating on scriptures such as Jn1:1, Jn 14:6 etc until the revelation of those Words are anchored deep in our hearts and minds. Otherwise we could be swept away by the powerful waves and winds of false doctrines and teachings that are being peddled in society.

Eph 4:14-15 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love……..

In my next blog I will discuss how we can speak the truth in love.

Meditation point: “Holy Spirit, you are the author of God’s Word. As I meditate on this Word will you bring the revelation of this Word and establish me in the, ‘truth’”.

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Rom 8:30 Having called them, He gave them right standing with Himself. (NLT)

Another bondage for many Christians is that of righteousness. Grace is not what we can do for God but what God has done for us; And He has justified us, that is, given us right standing with Himself.

Until we have a revelation of this truth we will always have a problem receiving everything God’s given to us through the cross; His forgiveness, mercy, love, joy, peace, healing, provision etc.

First: He does not count our sin against us.

2 Cor 5:19 God was in Christ, restoring the world to himself, no longer counting men’s sins against them but blotting them out.  (TLB)

Second: He has imputed His righteousness to us. Rom 4:3 Abraham believed in God, and it was credited (imputed) to his account as righteousness (right living and right standing with God). (AMP)

Now we have His righteousness (right standing with Him) we can stop trying to please Him with our self righteousness. Eg – Matt 6:33  But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (NIV). In this story Jesus is teaching the disciples that if they will seek first God’s righteousness, He will provide everything they need materially and spiritually.

If we don’t have a revelation of God’s righteousness we will view this scripture as saying that our lifestyle must become holy and righteous and we have to seek God before He will provide for our needs; But Jesus spoke this before the cross. After the cross His righteousness is revealed through His son, therefore because we are born again we now have His righteousness, (right standing with Him) and qualify for God’s provision. We don’t have to fulfill any rules or change our lifestyle, we simply claim the promise He’s made to us in Christ.

“Thank you Lord I am now the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor 5:21) and I trust you to meet all my needs”.

As we hold fast to this scripture in faith we will see God’s provision flowing into our lives.

Meditation point: 1 Cor 1:30 But it is from Him that you have your life in Christ Jesus, Whom God made our Righteousness [thus making us upright and putting us in right standing with God]. (AMP)

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Prov 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue. (NKJV)

Another area where we have put ourselves in bondage is in our use of, ‘self imposed laws’. These are laws that we or others have spoken over us: I must keep my house clean at all times. I must not show my emotions. I must not upset my parents etc etc.

Imposing a law upon ourselves means that when we break it, punishment will follow by means of guilt, shame, fear, condemnation, rejection. Eg: I must keep my house clean at all times; When our house is clean we feel peaceful, happy, fulfilled. But the day comes when the kitchen is untidy, the dogs footprints dirty the floor and the dishes pile up in the sink.

There’s a knock on the door; we remember we’ve invited our next door neighbour for coffee. We invite them in knowing they will see the kitchen. They’ll think we are dirty and disorganised, they’ll tell all the neighbours and they won’t return our invitation. We feel ashamed, guilty and rejected. What has happened? We are experiencing the punishment of breaking our own self imposed law.

On the cross, Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law (this includes self imposed laws). So although the law still stands, it no longer applies to us.Rom 6:14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Therefore , when we do wrong, fail or fall short, we no longer have to accept the negative emotions of guilt, shame or fear because Jesus has taken that punishment in our place and His blood has cleansed us from all unrighteousness. Rom 8:1 Therefore, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus. (AMP)

We can now throw off all the accusations of satan and declare we’ve been set free from the punishment of the law and are now no longer under it’s constraints. We can now speak life to ourselves instead of death. “Thank you Lord that now I am in Christ I am no longer under the law and it’s punishment, therefore I refuse all negative emotions that would seek to imprison me and bring bondage to my life”.

Meditation point: I am no longer under the law, I am under grace. Jesus has set me free from the prison of my own self imposed laws.

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Isa 6:5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone.   (KJV)

Another bondage brought on through following the law is the fear of God. Many Christians have a phobia today and it’s called, ‘Theo-Phobia: The Fear of God’.

The law has conditions attached to it. If we fulfill the law we are blessed, if we break the law we are cursed. Hence when we do wrong, if we don’t have a revelation of the grace and love of God we will fear Him and suffer guilt and condemnation. We’ll fear coming to Him in prayer, praise and worship and remain in the outer court of His presence; we’ll fear the consequences of our actions and what He will do to us.

Fear steals our peace, joy and rest in God. It saps spiritual energy from our life and instead of being as bold as a lion we become quiet as a mouse; we lose our authority and power and become weak and insipid.

When Jesus died on the cross He died as our representative and on our behalf. He fulfilled the conditions of the law perfectly by loving the Lord His God with all His heart, mind, soul and strength. Thus God was able to lavish upon Him the fullness of His unconditional love; and because you and I are now in Christ, we too become the recipients of His  unconditional love. It doesn’t matter how many times we fail, it doesn’t change God’s love towards us.

1 John 4:17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; There is no fear in love, perfect love casts out fear  (NKJV)

John is here saying that God’s love has been perfected in our hearts thus removing all fear; we can now come into His presence with boldness knowing we are fully accepted no matter our spiritual condition. So if we are struggling with worry, resentment, unforgiveness, shame etc, we are still fully accepted by Him. This emboldens us to come to Him in prayer, praise and worship and receive the strength and cleansing  from our weaknesses; so when things go wrong – we don’t run away from God, we run to God.

Knowing we no longer have to fear God releases us from bondage into total freedom. It was for freedom that Christ has set us free………

Meditation point: Do I know the Fathers’ unconditional love. Do I know his complete acceptance. Have I been delivered from all fear of God. If not, “then Father , open the eyes of my heart to see the fullness of your love for me”.

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